From: "settummanque, the blackeagle" (Mike Walton)
Via: Scouts-L Youth Programs Discussion List

(From "Patches and Pins" (or "The Quest for the Silver Beaver...."), by Mike Walton (c) 1988)

A television interviewer asked me once "What was your most vivid memory as a child?" and "What one thing would you have wanted to do as a child back around the time of your parents' birth?" I asked her to let me come back to the "vivid memory" question but I later put the two together in my response to her and her audience.

My parents were born in the 40s, and during that time period, I remember reading about the 1953 National Scout Jamboree in California. As a matter of fact, the 1953 Jamboree was not too far off from 1968 and 69. That was the time period I spent in Ludwigsburg American Elementary School's library reading about it all. The articles in _Boys' Life_ and _Scouting_ as well as other national magazines all talked about the '53 Jamboree as if it was the last one ever held. It wasn't....it was only the third such national gatherings of Boy Scouts and Scouters which generally took place every four years. Since 1969, I have been to three and was getting ready to visit my fourth, which was part of the basis for the interview.

Back then, any boy, Patrol, or Troop that wanted to go just had to raise their own monies, get together and go. There was no "quota" as to how many boys could go representing a particular community or locality. There was no "leadership standard" so that even the newest Scoutmaster and the most aged-old goat could both attend and participate in this truly once-in -a-lifetime experience. Also back then, there was no such thing as "contingents"....your Troop, your Patrol or yourself would go and represent your unit and local Council if there was not anyone else there from your area.

You were housed together in "Subcamps", just as now; but the Subcamps were not arranged exclusively by the part of the country you lived in. You ate each other's food, you played each others' games and you prayed together on Sunday unless your faith had you to go to "vespers" on another day. The program was aimed at you getting to know and work and be around other Scouts, not BMX bike racing. You built tall signal towers and sent silly messages back and forth. You talked with real engineers and librarians and chemists and pigeon farmers, not "national marketing representatives" of various industries.

From what I read, the Jamboree was truly a model of how Americans should live. I recall one article talking about how "Negroes and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, colored and white boys all stood together, showered together, worked and played together with little problem and much cooperation", and I silently added as I read it, "as it should be in life period".

I did not think anything of that factual statement, but now as I realized that many of the United States at that time was having problems with such integration, that sentence said an entire article.

The thing that really excited me, however, was how the Scouts got to the Irvine Ranch. They took trains. They drove. They hiked. They traveled with special carts, called "Jamboree carts", to and from the Jamboree. They went in groups, and when returning, they traveled much the same way.

They pitched their tents in farm fields, in tenament yards, in city and state parks and EVERYWHERE they went, the police protected them. Homeowners would offer them food and drinks. Mothers and grandmothers would do their laundry and press their uniforms. And not a penny was offered or given for those services, not a dime was given to "pay the Scout's ways", and Scouts were careful not to "smudge the good name of the Boy Scout" in everything they did.

One article I read, told about how one Boy Scout decided that he would go into a poolhall and play some snooker (I still don't really know what that game is, but I think it is a kind of a pool game) with some non-Scouts. Two other, older, stockier Scouts walking by, noticed that this Scout's wagon was outside the door and went in after the Scout. An argument ensured, and the two stockier Scouts ended up dragging the "bad Scout" out into the street and offered him a choice: either continue to the Jamboree with them or go home.

The Scout, it was told, continued onward with the others to and from the Jamboree.

So, I would constantly daydream, wishing it was me that was travelling along with those many other Scouts -- from Tennessee, from Arkansas and from Ohio; from Kansas and Connecticut and from Washington, D.C. From South Carolina and from Florida. Then I wondered how did the Americans from Europe, where I was at, got to go. I found my answer out within a few months: The Troop that I was a new member of, Troop 63, went to the 1953 Jamboree. At my third meeting, I asked that question of Tom, my Patrol Leader. He showed me a scrapbook that had photos of some of the Troop travelling to California. They took a military transport plane to a base in Illinois, and then set out from there to California. On the way back, they went to Texas and took another military transport plane back to Germany and hiked from there back home.

Scouts today cannot take "military transport planes" to the Jamboree. It's against Scouting rules as well as military policies now, but back then, it was nothing to "hitch a ride" from Germany to wherever the plane was going...and the pilots and flight crews love to take Scouts along... they weighed less, complained less, and were more willing to be patient and wait for the next plane to take them onto their next "leg of the trip" than many adults were.

Tom, who went to that Jamboree, also showed me that not everyone made it to and from the Jamboree. Two boys broke legs and had to stop. Another boy got into trouble with the authorities -- and even had the summons from the judge, who wrote in the summons "I am very disappointed in you, fellow Scout" on one side. It made me feel even more envious of those boys and men that traveled all that way for ten days of camping.

My father drove trucks for the Army as I was growing up in Germany....the Army called them "Truck Transportation Specialists", or "Eighty-eight Mikes". My father loved taking trips in one of the Army's trucks, travelling all over the countryside and seeing things and meeting people whom later would become friends of his. That is partly the reason why I am so adventurous. He would come home from a long trip, and after a rest of a couple days, would announce to the family (my mother, my younger brother Shell and me at the time) "Let's Go!! Book Up, Now!" (even the thought invoked by my saying his words brings a wide smile to my face). When someone would ask "Where are we going??", the only words that Robert Walton would reply with is "grab your coat and book up!!". We would all pile into the Monte Carlo or the Volkswagon and take off and drive for hours and hours, only stopping for bathroom breaks and to get something to eat at a resturant or at a miltary base somewhere. Shell asked my Dad once why do we spend Sundays "driving around somewhere like we are lost?" My dad replied from the front seat that we better "see the world because you only get to see it the way it is one time in your life!" He continued to do that same kind of thing when we returned Stateside, but it was very short-lived as he went to Drill Sergeant School and they did not allow for any time off to "Book Up" somewhere with your family.

I would have loved to have my Dad to tell me, living back in the early 50s, "Mike, Book Up Now and get to that Jamboree thing. Be careful, never forget where you came from and that I'm proud of you, son."

I would have loved to have met those Scouts and Scouters travelling along with me, eating with me, sleeping in tents besides my "pup tent", singing "The Quartermaster Store" or "Kumbaya" and talking about Troops and merit badges and girls and places to go and exciting things.

When I arrived here in Germany as an officer, I sat in the "onward staging center". While waiting for onward orders to Goeppingen, I was talking with another soldier about what I read and recalled about that Jamboree. He later sent me a 1953 Jamboree patch along with a note: "You were not born during the time of this Jamboree, but when I was talking about it with you, you sure were there in your mind. Here's a sovenier from someone that did go, my Dad. He passed on a few years back and left me all of his patches, and I would have just traded it." I later passed that patch onward.

So, as I was sitting there smiling at the reporter as she asked me those two questions, I replied that I would have loved to been back during the time of the grand National Jamboree at Irvine Ranch in 1953. It was before the racial uprest of the late 50s and early 60s, it was right after a time of national unity, and most importantly, I am positive that my father would have encouraged me to get out there and see the world because you only get to see it the way it is one time in your life, and to "Book Up Now", and to go do and see it -- and make them proud.

I smiled and knew that she would never understand it; but to lots of Scouts and Scouters that were getting ready to turn in monies to attend the latest National Jamboree, they would know exactly what I was talking about. *****

Settummanque!