On the heels of realizing that my mother never sent my letter offering film critique to Steven Spielberg (because how could she in 1981?) came this other realization:
My parents probably never requested my Eagle Scout extension either.
By the time I was 15 years old I had more than enough merit badges to become an Eagle Scout. All I needed to do was complete a service project, and my lifelong goal would finally become a reality. But I procrastinated, and without any parent helping or supporting me, the months wasted away until I was about six months from turning 18 and in danger of losing my chance at becoming an Eagle Scout.
So I immediately went to work. My plan was to raise enough money to plant trees in a cemetery in my town. My Boy Scout troop had planted a line of saplings two years earlier, but many had died. I planned on raising the money to purchase new saplings so that the troop could plant and replace them in the spring.
I was in the process of organizing a bottle and can collection drive – something I had done with my troop in the past – and securing donations from businesses like Almacs and Ideal Pizza in return for Boy Scout volunteer hours – when I went through a windshield in a head-on car collision and required CPR in the back of an ambulance to restore my life.
In addition to head and chest wounds, my legs required surgery, so I hobbled around in crutches for more than two months and spent the next six months recovering fully.
During the week following the accident, while I was still in the hospital, I asked my parents to apply for an extension on my Eagle project given the accident and my injuries. I thought that in addition to purchasing the saplings, I would now be able to plant them with the troop in the spring and thus complete my project before graduating from high school.
My request for an extension was denied.
I was devastated. To this day it remains one of life’s greatest regrets. The Boy Scouts in many ways saved my life as a boy. They gave me a safe place to excel. Provided me with positive male role models who I desperately needed. Fostered friendships that meant the world to me. I spent my summers at camp, learning to become independent and self sufficient. It was at camp where I first took a stage and told stories and jokes to entertain my fellow Scouts.
I learned more in Boy Scouts than anywhere else in my life, and I earned more than enough merit badges to become an Eagle Scout.
Then I car accident derailed it all.
I was angry with the Boy Scouts for years for not granting me that extension, It made no sense to me. Even so, I eventually became an assistant Scoutmaster for a local troop and served in that capacity for several years. I’m a member of my camp’s alumni association and still return every summer on alumni day.
Last year I brought my family along.
And now my son is a Cub Scout, on his way to Boy Scouts and perhaps Eagle Scout.
Despite my continued investment in Scouting, I remained angry for a long, long time about their refusal to help a wounded boy make his childhood dream come true.
Then, just recently, it occurred to me:
My parents never requested that extension.
They made no attempt to help me get into college. Never even spoke the word “college” to me. Instead, it was made clear to me that when I graduated from high school, I would be moving out.
I received pots and pans and a microwave oven for Christmas that year.
What are the chances that parents who couldn’t find the wherewithal to speak the word “college” to me or assist in my Eagle project in any way requested that extension?
My Scoutmaster, Mr. Pollock, has sadly passed away, as has my mother, so I have no way of ever knowing for sure. I don’t know if the Boy Scouts of America keeps records on these things, but even if they do, the request would’ve been made before the internet or computer databases existed in any public way. Before people were even using computers.
Those paper files are surely gone.
It doesn’t alleviate me of any of the regret that I feel. I still long to go back and somehow earn that Eagle Scout badge. It was something I dreamt about ever since I entered Cub Scouts as a little boy. It’s difficult to work so hard for so many years to come within a whisper of making a dream come true, only to have it derailed on a snowy December day in a near fatal car accident and perhaps the negligence of parents.
A couple years ago, I decided to complete my Eagle project anyway, either at the same cemetery or some other in need of trees. I hope to do so this summer.
It won’t earn me the rank of Eagle Scout, but it’ll perhaps it will at least complete a journey I began a long time ago.
