I lasted for about three weeks as a Cub Scout. I didn't know about their anti-gay policies, of course, but I wasn't interested in building race cars, models of battleships, or bird houses. It was like the agony of shop class, only with adults hovering around, insisting that I was having fun.
I didn't like the pledge, or the salute, or the song "God Bless America" that ended every session.
But I did like the scouting magazine,
Boys' Life, which offered stories, games, and comics about boys bonding with each other, usually with no girls around. Sometimes there were interesting bodybuilding tips, and even more interesting photos of bodybuilding teens.
Or articles about scouting in exotic foreign locales. Not as evocative as the
My Village books, but still offering scattered glimpses of the "good place."
My grade school held a Scout Jamboree every spring, where you could get free copies of instructional manuals for merit badges. There were dozens, covering everything from philately to rock-climbing, with genuinely valuable information. And tons of beefcake photos, especially in the manuals for swimming, diving, rowing, physical fitness, and judo.
By the time I got to high school, I had three or four different editions of the lifesaving manual. My parents found this odd, since I never took any lifesaving classes.
Wow, it looks like the issues of 'Boy's Life' from your era were a LOT better than mine.. I guess by the 1980s someone had started to catch on that gay boys were getting turned on and they decided to tone it down.. I remember there was the occasional shot showing a nice bulge in the tight jeans practically every boy wore back in the early 1980s, but that was about the extent of it.. :(
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DeleteRonald Reagan was elected in 1980 when the Industrialists and the Christians got together and started us down the road to Fascism. We've got to figure out how to reverse this dive into hell for us all especially the Millennials they have known nothing but Fascism.
You should have stuck with the scouts bro. A lot of fun was had in those tents in the early morning.
ReplyDeleteI was never a scout but I remember reading the magazine in the library and the boys scout manual had some very stimulating illustrations
ReplyDeleteBoys Life! I associate two images from my childhood with that magazine. first, Wilt Chamberlain's dick crammed down the side of a pair of slacks, and second, a three-legged OJ Simpson ad for a boot company. the latter reminds me that around the same period I stumbled across a book on subliminal messaging in advertising... I wonder what the boot company was trying to say about Simpson?
ReplyDeleteYou got to see the comic book ad of OJ selling boots to the Dingo Boys!!!
DeleteYour story is too funny, sweet and funny, thank you!
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