From: WKUVX1::WALTOML "Settummanque, the blackeagle (502)782-7992"
To: MX%"SCOUTS-L@TCUBVM.BITNET"
Good evening all!
As the BSA enters its 83d year of service to youth around the world, I would also like to say "Happy Birthday" and offer three short stories of why I really love this organization and its priniciples. Two of them are really embarassing, but I tell them not to watch my face turn purple with embarrassment, but rather as ramblings from a man that years ago, wanted so much to become a "Club Scout", that he risked punishment from his mother when he asked.
The Turkowskis ( of which the youngest child, Edward, swallowed a "steelie" marble, blocking his small windpipe for two or three minutes until I rolled my Matchbox {tm} car over in his direction, and then, placed Edward across my lap and slapped his back several times until the marble, his lunch and breakfast came out over me (which the BSA deemed an "heroic action" and presented me with a Certificate of Heroism in 1974) was the first Catholic family that I've met and become friends with. Up until that time, I knew some things from being around Karen (my first girlfriend, a Catholic, whom also taught me the power of prayer). I really never knew how close some families were until I met Thomas Turkowski and his family.
John, the senior Turkowski (with family roots in Poland), was the Cubmaster of the Pack in the housing area where I lived. Every housing area had a Cub Pack and several had Troops, as well. His wife Debbie was the Den Leader Coach. They joined Scouting while they were stationed in Hawaii and both were struggling to keep the Pack in the housing area together. Boys were falling out, mostly to sports and the new pinball arcade in another nearby community. Also, Scouting was not the "cool thing" to be into in 1974. I was the "Head Den Chief" for the Pack, and since I was the only one trained (at the time), I went to the Cub Leader Roundtable meetings. Debbie and John took me there--every month.
The night that I received the Certificate of Heroism, my mother gave me another talk about "running around behind those Boys Scouts and behind white people". She asked me for the first time, a question that bewildered me and engerized me since. "Where are all the Black people in Scouts?"
"Probably the same place where a lot of the white people are, Mom. People _period_ don't want to give up some time to work with kids, " I said, combing out (back in those days, most Blacks wore Afros, hair piled up and around the head, fluffed out. Remember the Hair Bear Bunch??) my hair.
I should have kept my big mouth shut, but I was stunned. "Like you." My mother came in, slapped my face, and reminded me that she was the parent, I the child. "I work hard for your little life, Micheal Walton. Don't you ever forget it."
I remembered "A Scout is Brave" as I felt the blood rush to my left cheek. I quickly got my red beret that I had earned earlier from the Pack, said "I am going to the Roundtable. Will you guys be there?? I am getting an award."
"You get so many of them awards. No. Your Daddy won't be home until late (he was a Drill Sergeant, and those jokers work day and night...) and I'm too tired to go back out."
The Turkowskis picked me up at the bus stop, and we went to the Pot Luck for the District's Blue and Gold Banquet. We ate chicken, and after the Scout Executive presented me with the certificate, they were the first to stand and applude. After everything was over, I was returned to the bus stop, where I walked behind the building, back to the backdoor of the apartment, took off my clothes, and went to bed.
It seemed to me, as I laid there in my bedroom, that I've crossed over some "imaginary line" and developed a new family. Families where they more than Scouting leaders, but people that really tried to practice what they were preaching. In coming years, I would be introduced to other families that made Scouting not the center, but another reason to do things together. It didn't matter if the families were Catholic, Jewish (the Simmons), Protestant (the Murdocks, which also introduced me to female military officers for the first time), Lutherans (the Pilettes), or didn't go to church (the Zunigas).
They all confessed their faiths by their everyday living.
A while back, I was looking at an old edition of the _Eagletter_, published by the BSA's Eagle Scout Service and the National Eagle Scout Association. I was reading those other thrilling and exciting stories of how others have received their heroism awards. It made me proud. Looking at the pictures, though, of the families present with the Scout did nothing for my self-concept, however.
I guess, it *does* make me feel good to know that if one of my children was choking or drowning or in some danger that somewhere there's some Scout or Scouter that knows enough to help save their lives.
That is, *if* their mothers and fathers let them.
Yeah, I've been bankrupt. In this era whereby the economy was sliding, where jobs were not plentiful, and where the emphasis was on "getting it now, not later, now", I fell like many others.
My entire amount was a little over $6,000 total, but that included a large debt on a credit card. So, despite everything I believed in, everything I was raised up to do, I filed Chapter 13 in Augusta, Georgia.
For those not familiar with the bankrupcy program, allow me to present a small (what's small in Mike Walton's language??) version of what it is that I did. Basically, Chapter 13 is one of several chapters of the federal bankrupcy code, allowing people to "write off" their bad debts to a certain limit and over some items. The benefit is that the creditors get their monies. The downside is that you stay on the BAD LIST for anytime from 7-10 years.
(small enough??)
In this process, you have to go to two hearings. One, to tell the judge why you need this relief. The other, to "confirm" the judgement and to actually award the decree of bankrupcy. The date of the final judgement was another significant date in my life:
It was my 28th birthday.
I rode the Greyhound down to Augusta, having to leave Richmond, Kentucky at the break of dawn, to attend the hearing. I had a few hours lay-over in Augusta, so I walked three blocks to the school that I once taught at, before returning to leave for home.
In Atlanta, I had another lay-over, this time six hours's worth. While sitting in those unconfortable plastic chairs, writing lines in a book and observing people, a nun came back and forth between the Traveler's Aid and the station office. She was needing money to get back to Columbia, South Carolina.
"Can someone at the Church send you some money, Sister??", I overheard the Travelers' Aid man ask. "Can you get in touch with someone here and have them lend you the money??" "Give me the number there again, please".
It was obivious that she was not happy on this Friday the 13th. (yes, I was born on that day....)
After two hours of watching this lady walk back and forth, with no hope of getting back to her nunnery or church or whatever, I finally decided to do what I thought I should do anyway.
I walked over to the Travelers' Aid place, asked the man if she got a ticket to Columbia, and listened as the man told me what I already overheard. I then found the nun, gave her one of my old business cards from the "old days" where I was on two BSA national committees, and also gave her my last fourty dollars.
"Ma'm, you must have had a lousy day. I'm sorry. I hope that this can get you back to Columbia this evening." When she refused, I then told her that this was my birthday and I would have wasted it on beer and drinks, anyway, when I got back home.
"My day's already ruined. I'm officially bankrupt, so...here".
A few minutes later, she was on her bus, on her way east. Not too much
later after that, I was on the bus heading north.
I forgot about the "good turn" on my birthday, until one Saturday several years later, my middle son came back from the mailbox with a small letter. It had been stamped and forwarded so many times...we've moved twice since the business cards were made, reflecting the Augusta address. I had forgotten that it had that address. Inside, was two $20 bills, a rosary, and a handwritten "bless you".
I took the kid, including our smelly next door neighbor's kid, to get ice cream and filled the car with gasoline. I still have the Rosary somewhere around here.
Every Feburary, in communities around America (and around the world), recognition ceremonies are conducted for those Scouters in those areas. They--the Districts--recognize those who have trained themselves and others, those that have led key projects and those overall leaders who have given their time in service to Scouting.
Each District is offered at least one chance each year to recognize the outstanding leaders in that District. The District Award of Merit--a certificate, plaque and a emblem for the field uniform--is awarded. Each Council can also award a special award to Scouters who have given service to youth over a period of time. This award, the highest award that a local Council can award for service, is called the Silver Beaver, because that's what it is...a silver beaver suspended from a ribbon of blue, white and blue. It comes with a certificate, a emblem for the uniform and a lapel pin.
Everyone looks forward to attending the recognition banquet--if nothing else, but to see old friends and find out who received the Silver Beaver awards.
I figured that my time has not come yet; but I am beginning to wonder if it is _ever_ going to come. One year, I was sure that I would get one. I won't tell the year, but I can tell you that Rudolph could have gotten serious competition for redness.
You see, people are nominated for these awards, and the nomination committees are entrusted with finding out the background of each nominee, to do the actual "citiation" and NOT to tell ANYONE until the evening of the event.
So, when Larry Dould, a member of the Nominating committee, was asking my former spouce about my Scouting background, I knew something was up. When people at work asked me if I was going to the Boy Scout Dinner, I knew something was up. When Scouters from other Districts call me up, and asked if we've held our recognition dinner already, I knew something was up.
So, I am sitting literally on my hands, during the entire banquet. To this day, I could not tell you what we had to eat, whom was at our table, or even what Mildred was wearing. I couldn't even tell you if Amanda (then the only child), was there or not (she was, according to the pictures).
And then, they start with the Silver Beaver presentations. For some silly reason, they want to review the ENTIRE Scouting history of each awardee...and since EVERY Scouter knows where and how they became Scouters, it was really easy for me to figure out that "...SHE was the first...." was not me; nor that "...in OKINAWA, he was Scoutmaster..." (never been there); or "...At Fort Knox, Kentucky, he was Scoutmaster.."
WHOA!
That's me they're talking about.... I felt myself rising from my seat, moving toward the platform where the District Chairman was praising my record....until I got to the place where he stated "...and was FINANCE CHAIR for this DISTRICT for the last two years."
It was too late. It was a good thing that I stopped right behind the table where Greg was seated. I reached over and shook his hand, as everyone stood once more to recognize Major Gregory Jenkins (whom, by the way, was a Scoutmaster at Fort Knox, led one of the most successful SME drives, and served as Exploring chairman and later as a Unit Commissioner....) as he went forward to receive the Silver Beaver Award.
And I did not. I was so red, Mildred told me later, that my skin was the same color as the purple neckerchief I was wearing.
So every February, I'll go again to another recognition banquet. I'll eat something called food, I'll listen to (or give) a speech on the importance and relevance Scouting has to our society, and I'll sit there while great Scouts and Scouters that have toiled hard for years come forward and receive their awards.
And in the meantime, if you catch me with glazed-over eyes, let me be. I am probably imagining that I did get up there on the stage. Let me pretend that it is my Scouting record and background that they are reading aloud. Let me think that I'm the one that finished the quest for something rare and special, the Silver Beaver.
Let me dream.
Settummanque!!