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Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Wood Badge and Ears

I know the title isn't what you might expect but it signifies where I was for the past week. Before you get all crazy, I am not a fanatic scouter who wears his uniform everywhere and bleeds green blood (or blue or orange). But I do have a healthy appreciation for the benefit scouting is to young men so I try to be informed. For several years I have wanted to become Wood Badge certified so I finally took the time to go learn. For those wondering if it is worth it, it is. Not the easiest thing to do (I am, after all 54 and not quite as nimble as I used to be) but well worth the effort to become a better leader.

For those familiar with Wood Badge, I am a Beaver (I used to be a beaver, a good old beaver too…). My patrol consisted of five other men besides myself. We are all from differing backgrounds (soldier, engineer, furniture salesman, social studies teacher, not really sure, and me) but we were able to make a pretty good and efficient group. We had the advantage of all being independent so we were able to look at situations and see where we could be of use and get right to work. Other groups had folks who waited until someone told them what to do and lost time waiting around. Some of our activities required creative thinking so the fact that we all were willing to be involved made it more likely we could come up with a good plan. All in all, I enjoyed the week.

The negative is that I lost my hearing aids while we were up there. I had decided to take them out so they didn't get full of dust (I can still hear without them but they help with the high range…women and kids voices) and left them in my truck. After the week was over, I looked for them and discovered they were gone. Nothing else was missing so I can only assume I somehow kicked them out of the truck and lost them. It's not such a problem for me because I can get by without them but it is a big problem for my sweet wife (who has taken to carrying a stick to get my attention) and my students at school (when we go back). I suppose if we don't have some luck finding them soon, I will have to replace the silly little beasts.


I need to make this short because Melissa said my last entry was the "longest blog she has ever read." Bye for now.

1 comment:

Melissa DeMoux said...

I'm sorry that you lost your hearing aids. Now you will have tons of fun when the kids and I come over, six high pitched voices, I guess you'll have to learn to read lips. Oh well, we love you whether you can hear us or not. Thanks for the shorter post, the size was much more manageable (lol, it's your blog, post as much as you want).