Scouting in 2024

Charlie is away this weekend, camping with the Scouts.

He’s actually sleeping in a cabin, so I don’t really think of it as camping. In my hundreds of nights spent camping outdoors as a Boy Scout, I never once slept in a cabin. Never enjoyed heat, indoor plumbing, or electricity of any kind.

Tents, lean-tos, and structures built by lashing logs were our primary quarters, though we often slept under the stars.

Still, they call it camping, so fine. He’s camping.

As if to accentuate the differences between the Scouting of yesteryear and today’s Scouting adventures, Charlie sent us a message that read:

“We’re having a competition against the other patrols for the best food and presentation. We made bruschetta, grilled cheese, tomato soup, lemon cake, iced tea, and sparkling cider.”

The photos include a table decorated with candlesticks, a beautifully designed menu, and what I can only assume are fake rose petals.

I nearly fell over.

What a difference a couple of decades can make. I didn’t know what bruschetta was as a boy (and am not entirely sure I know what it is today), and lemon cake and sparkling cider were never on my Scouting menu.

I certainly did a lot of cooking as a Scout in my day, but the cooking was done entirely for sustenance, and presentation never entered our minds. In fact, the simpler the meal, the better. More than once, I tried cooking Celeste “Pizza for One” by fashioning a crude pizza oven from a large crock pot, an overturned mess kit bowl, and a hook.

The first time my Scoutmaster, Mr. Pollock, witnessed my attempt to make pizza in the woods, he responded as he often did:

“Jesus Christ…”

Had I included a menu and rose petals, I think he might’ve punched me in the face.

No shade on Charlie and his troop’s culinary adventures, of course. Evolution is fine. Change is good. Progress is preferred. Happy to see my son is learning new skills.

Just not exactly what I had envisioned when he left on Friday night.