The Tribe

The H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation located near Osceola, Missouri is quite a place. I don't know how long it has been in operation, but when I was a kid, it had been operating for several years and it is still growing and going strong. I visited about 6 years ago and was amazed at how much the camp had expanded with new buildings, swimming pools, etc.

Central to the experience of Scout Camp was the tribe of Mic-O-Say. This program was based on folklore, fiction, and history about an Osceola Indian tribe that lived in the region way back when. H. Roe Bartle, a former mayor of Kansas City, Missouri and a powerful political leader in Missouri founded the camp and the Mic-O-Say program for scouting in Missouri.

Being "called" into the tribe was a great honor for a scout. It didn't come automatically just because you were at camp but was something you attained by being recommended by your scouting leaders. You had to be a model scout and live as such even to be considered.

No scout was ever "called" into the tribe at their first year of camp. This was something reserved for second and third year scouts. There were 3 levels of being a tribesman. You were called as a "Foxman," then progressed to a "Brave," and finally you attained "Warrior" status. Other levels of Warrior were attained with projects, programs, and various other things to advance you in the tribe. You could become a fire builder, or drummer, or shamman, but H. Roe Bartle was the chief until he died a few years ago. I don't know who is the chief now.

I was called into the tribe as a Foxman my second year of scouting. The name given to me was "He Who Builds With Wood," based on information I gave the elders of the tribe. I told them how I liked working with wood and my dad had taught me several things about carpentry.

When you were called into the tribe it was done at a huge campfire. Your name was called and you proceeded to an outer circle around the fire ring. Then after everyone was called and assembled a pair of runners came by and literally threw you from the ring and said, "Leave this council ring!" You left with the runners and were taken into the woods to spend the night by yourself and not come back into camp until the runners came and got you the next night about 6PM. It was a long night and you had to stay in the woods no matter what the weather was. In addition you were placed on "silence" for 48 hours. This made meal time at the mess hall a real interesting experience. You couldn't talk and if the campers didn't like you they would ignore you and not pass you any food. Some guys went hungry for several meals. But of course, this made you more of a man!

My third year of camp I made Warrior but this was the last year I attended camp. I never advanced in the tribe.

All-in-all my scouting experience was good. I earned over 30 merit badges. I earned the rank of "Life Scout" but did not complete "Eagle." My troop disbanded when I was a Junior in High Shool and that was the end of my scouting experience. I should have gone to another town and another troop to complete the Eagle rank but I didn't. Now I wished I had. Only 2% of scouts earn the rank of Eagle.

Sinker, Frog, Shark

I was a member of the Boy Scouts of America when I was growing up. Before becoming a Boy Scout I was a Cub Scout. You don't have to be a Cub Scout to be a Boy Scout but it's kind of like going to pre-school before you go to kindergarten.

I remember the first year I went to summer camp at the H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation near Osceola, Missouri. It was a 10 day camp and cost $18.00 per camper for the entire time. Our Troop #266 in Oak Grove would have paper drives and other work projects so we could apply our earnings toward the cost of camp. I was a "tenderfoot" with all of the anxieties you have going to summer camp for the very first time. All of the stories you heard only added to your already preconceived ideas of horrification about what might happen to you. They were all true!

I remember being horribly homesick after the first three days of camp. Our scoutmaster told the first year campers parents not to send any letters because it would make us homesick and that is something he didn't want to happen. For me it would have been better to get a letter during mail call. Hearing most of the other boys names called at mail call and not hearing your own name wasn't fun.

The highlight of camp for me was swimming. In order to be able to attend the "open swim" sessions you had to be able to swim 50 yards. If you couldn't swim the 50 yards you had to attend a swimming class for beginners. Well, I couldn't swim the 50 yards and I was labeled a "Sinker" and had to wear a circular red tag with a hole in it around my neck. You were required to wear it outside your shirt at all times. This was humiliating and embarassing because I was the only one in our troop that was a "Sinker."

The second year I was able to swim the 50 yards and was labeled a "Frog" and got to wear the Frog tag. My third year I was able to swim 100 yards and earned the coveted "Shark" tag. I was proud to wear it on the outside of my shirt. I even took Life Saving merit badge my third year and received Red Cross certification in Life Saving.

Meal time was a real experience at camp. We ate in this huge dining hall. I don't know how many tables there were but it seemed like there were a hundred. KP (Kitchen Police) was not a duty you wanted to do. You had to go to the dining hall 30 minutes early and set the table(s) for your troop. Then you had to go to the kitchen and get the bowls of food and put them on the table. Of course all the first year campers had to rotate for KP duty. I think I did it about every other day for the 10 days.

My least favorite foods included "Shit-on-the-shingle" (Corned beef on toast), "Buzzard Puke" (Oatmeal with raisins), and Breaded Tomatoes (we had no special name for this dish).

I'll share more of my scouting experiences in future posts.

My First Set of Wheels

I wanted a bicycle and my dad said I would have to work to earn the money to buy it. So he bought me an 18" lawnmower from Sears and said I would have to find some yards to mow. I never did figure out why he bought me the lawnmower rather than just buying me the bicycle. I guess he wanted me to learn that if you wanted something you had to work for it. I used to mow yards for $3.00 (at the most) and some of them I mowed for $2.00 As I remember they were big yards. I drove by them later when I was older and they were very small yards!

I had a bike picked out at our local Western Auto store in Oak Grove. It was a Western Flyer with white-wall tires, a mud flap on the back fender and tassles hanging off the handlebars. It was fire engine red. The bike cost $18.00 so I had to mow a lot of yards to save up the money. Gasoline cost me 18 cents a gallon and I could mow most of the summer on 2 gallons of gas. Anyway I thought the gas was expensive.

I finally saved enough to get the bike and now the world was mine. My parents would let me ride the bike most anywhere in town that I wanted to go. There was only one paved road in town and that was a state highway and I wasn't allowed to ride on this road. I could ride anywhere else that I wanted to.

One time me and my friends decided we would "ride the highway" to Sni Mills, 6 miles south of Oak Grove. Of course we hoped our parents wouldn't find out but of course they did. Before we went on our bicycle trip I "borrowed" a plug of tobacco from my grandpa. It was a brand called Tinsley's Thick. It was awful but we thought we were "tough" and could handle it. None of us had ever chewed before.

What we didn't know was that you weren't supposed to swallow the juice from the tobacco. We were all chewing and swallowing and after about a mile into the trip we all got sick. One guy was throwing up but I never did. I just got very sick and had to walk my bike back home. My mother was waiting on the back porch when I got home and wanted to know why I was looking so green and grey and I told her. She asked where I had been and I told her. I was in trouble again.

I got busted and my bicycle riding was suspended for two weeks. I got in trouble for riding on the highway AND for "borrowing" the chewing tobacco from my grandpa.

I've never tried chewing tobacco again!

I Knew Nothing

My dad bought me a Daisy "Red Ryder" BB gun for my birthday one year. Don't remember how old I was but dad must have thought I was old enough. I loved it. I played cowboys and Indians with it nearly every day. All of my friends had BB guns and I think I was the last one in my group to get one.

We used to go to a friends barn and shoot at each other. Yes ... shoot at each other. The standing rule was to shoot below the waist but of course, there was an accidental shot once in a while that landed above the waist. It is a wonder that someone didn't get hurt seriously.

There was a street light on the corner next to my house. We would shoot out the bulb because it was great target practice. Someone, probably my grandma,would report that the light was out and the city would come and replace the bulb. Of course, usually that same night, we would shoot out the light bulb again. After a while the city just ignored the street light so the corner was in the dark most all the time.

We never did get caught shooting out the light but the town marshall did come by and talk to me one time about it. Of course "I knew nothing ... nothing at all."

Another Cowboy Episode

Another thing I liked that cowboys did was to set traps. I remember from the old movies that when the cowboys wanted to catch the bad guys, they would dig a trench across the road and cover it with tree branches and sticks and leaves, etc. Then the good guys would get the bad guys to chase them and of course, the bad guys would fall into the trap (trench). Then the good guys would beat up the bad guys, have the sheriff take the bad guys to jail, and then the good guy got to kiss the girl and ride off into the sunset with her.

I thought this was pretty neat and I thought I would try it. There was a chicken house on our property and a garage. There was a walk space between them about 5 feet wide. I thought this would be a great place to dig a hole in the ground, cover it with sticks and leaves, and set a trap for some unexpectant weary soul. I would trap somebody! I would get'em!

I dug the hole right in the middle of the walkway about 2 feet wide and 12 inches deep. No one could miss stepping on the sticks and leaves and fall into the hole. I had a rope in the garage that I thought I could tie up the unsuspecting passerby, thus capturing the "bad guy."

My brother-in-laws grandfather lived in the chicken house that had been converted to a one room apartment. He was about 75 years old and rather thin and frail. He walked with a cane. His name was Jasper Scott.

Well, as fate and my luck would have it, Jasper stepped in the hole. I'd caught my first person in the trap! Of course I had no intention of catching a 75 year old frail grandpa that walked with a cane. I thought I would get someone my own age so I could beat them up and then tie them up with my rope. I don't know if I would have called the local police to get them thrown in jail ... after all, they had committed no crime. And where was the girl that I was going to ride off into the sunset with? Where, oh where was she?

Jasper sprained his good ankle really bad. He was able to get up and get into the chicken house, now an apartment, and call his grandson, my brother-in-law. When my brother-in-law arrived and surveyed the scene, it didn't take a New York detective to figure out the scenerio. I was in trouble ..... again!

I don't remember what my punishment was but I do remember having to apologize to Mr. Scott, fill in the hole-trap, sustain a really good tongue lashing from my hot-headed brother-in-law, and promise I would never do anything like that again.

Dad told me that if I ever did anything like that again, and hurt somebody, there would be hell to pay and I would pay it at a costly price.

I never set a trap again!

I Wanted To Be A Cowboy

When I was a kid I always wanted to be a cowboy. I would have been a good cowboy. When I lived on the farm I used to set up hay bales in the barn and pretend it was a horse and ride miles and miles. When we moved to town and got our first black and white 13 inch television I watched every cowboy and Indian show that was broadcast on Saturday mornings. Then on Saturday afternoons if there was a western movie at the local theatre, I would scrape up the 10 cents to go to the movies. No drink and no popcorn ... just the movie.

I was "eat up" with wanting to be a cowboy. I paid attention to every detail in the television shows and the Saturday afternoon movies. The thing that particularily excited me was when the cowboys were chasing the Indians or the Indians were chasing the cowboys. I also loved to watch the cowboys blow-up something with dynamite. I especially liked it when they would blow-up a shack on a hillside.

Well .......... I got a bright idea one day. I decided that I was going to make a bomb and blow-up the neighbors garage. It was falling down anyway and was an eye sore to the neighborhood. So I figured out that I would take 4 of my brothers shotgun shells and tape them together. Then I fugured out that I could use wax paper for a fuse.

I got all my stuff together and left to go to the neighbors across the street. I planted the bomb on the ground up against the back side of the garage. Then I proceeded to lay out the wax paper fuse across a vacant lot that was next to the garage. I layed it out and down into a ditch that was about four feet deep. The ditch would give me good cover to hide in and protect me from the huge explosion that I visioned in my mind.

As soon as I had the fuse layed down into the ditch I lit it with a match. The fuse burned up out of the ditch and the fire was on its way to the bomb. I dove into the ditch to take cover ..... and I waited. I waited. I waited. I waited and waited and waited for the explosion.

After waiting some more, I peeked up over the edge of the ditch and much to my surprise, the entire back yard was on fire. The grass was burning toward his house and I just knew it was going to burn his house down. I panicked and didn't know what to do.

As luck would have it, a neighbor lady was watching the whole episode out her kitchen window. She had called the volunteer fire department which took forever to arrive. They put out the fire and everything was under control. But the bomb never went off and I didn't have the pleasure of hearing the explosion that would have wiped the neighbors garage off the map.

Of course everyone in the whole town knew about my episode within the hour because news like that travels fast in a small town. My parents knew about it before they ever got home from work and I was in big trouble. My punishment was NO television and NO cowboy movies for a month.

I also had to go knock on the neighbors door and apologize to him for burning up the yard and trying to blow up his garage. He just smiled at me and then he laughed.

New Fun Begins

The move to town was over. We were all settled in. I didn't have to make new friends because I already had plenty of friends from school and church. I just had to learn where they lived. With a population of only 761 people it wasn't too much of an area to learn.

We lived on the west side of town about 3 blocks from what we called "downtown." There were no street signs and the streets were a dirt-oil mix with some gravel mixed in. There was no home mail delivery. Everyone went to the post office to get their mail. It depended on where you were in town as to whether it was "uptown" or "downtown." Downtown consisted of two short city blocks with a four-way stop right in the middle of town. Town was bordered on the north end by the Grease Palace, a full-service "filling" station. It was bordered on the south end by Shelby Motor Company. I can only remember seeing maybe one or two cars inside on the showroom floor at any one time. I don't think they sold many cars. Downtown consisted of a grocery store, a post office, a drug store (pharmacy and soda fountain), hardware store, funeral parlor, bank, movie theatre, gasoline station, restaurant, dry cleaners, car dealership, a telephone office, and a local newspaper printing shop. There may have been more businesses but these are all I can remember. The bank is the only business that exists today and of course it has changed ownership through the years. None of the other business are in existence.

The "drug store" was on the busy corner at the four-way stop and was my favorite place to go. You could buy a small fountain drink for 5 cents. A scoop of ice cream cost 7 cents. I remember when the cost of a small drink went to 8 cents. I was crushed. It was just too expensive.

You could buy liquor by the bottle at the drug store. The owner had it stored and locked up in a cabinet all by itself. There was a sign hanging over the cabinet that said: NO SALES TO MINORS. I thought that was pretty interesting and curious. I wondered why he wouldn't sell it to minors. I deciphered that it must be because when the workers got down in the coal mines they would get drunk and couldn't find their way out. Then it dawned on me that there weren't any mines within hundreds of mile of Oak Grove. I finally had to ask my dad what the sign meant. He told me. I felt rather foolish.

There was an electric cigar lighter in the drug store that fascinated all of us boys. You could pull down on a lever and it would create a spark that lit a wick and then you could light your cigar. Well, we devised that we could smoke a paper straw or a grape vine, so we would sneek in the back of the store and light a straw and smoke it. It was good for about 3 puffs before fire would burn your tongue.

My fascination with smoking continued. There will be other stories of smoking.