Every Scout and Scouter knows it takes 21 merit badges to become an Eagle. These 21 stories are badges, of a sort, to the Scout who was in the midst of the action. While these 21 badges didn't lead to Eagle, their recipient became an Eager Scout, in spite of the misdeeds, accidents, and misadventures.
When I joined Boy Scouts, I began my life as a wanderer. All I needed was a knapsack on my back to carry the essentials for the adventure: a can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew, some flour in a plastic bag, a change of socks, an extra shirt, a Vittle Kit, a can opener, and a bottle of bug repellent. Over my shoulder I slung a canteen of water or bug juice and a cook kit. Clipped to my belt was a flashlight (batteries of uncertain charge), a match safe (unknown quantity of strike-anywhere matches), and a first aid kit. In my pocket was a jackknife and a compass. What else could anyone need for a nice day hike? As a middle-aged adult, I continued my wandering, usually following Scouts who were learning the first steps of being successful wanderers. As an older adult, I continue wandering, preferring to take the small red and blue roads on a map instead of the Interstates and major federal and state routes. It is amazing what you can really see at 45 m.p.h. as you travel through the country. You can stop virtually anywhere to get out of the car, stretch your legs, and occasionally wander on foot. The stories reflect the adventures and misadventures of two Scouts and their Scoutmaster in the late 1950s and early 1960s, a time when life and Scouting were simpler. It was a time when I was beginning to learn to wander, and in some of these stories, taken mostly from real-life adventures, we wandered well off the path. It was fun.
The Teapot in the Tempest is a collection of short stories of the Scouts of Buggsville, Indiana. Set in the late 1950s, Troop 129's Daniel Boone Patrol is a troop of misfits that keep making the same mistakes over and over. Eventually they learn from those mistakes and use that knowledge to make more mistakes. What's past is prologue, and it is a comedy of errors indeed.
Friends come and go with the passage of time and distance. But those friends who seem themselves as brothers, whether they are related by blood or not, are brothers forever. These stories are the adventures of six boys, brothers bound by the ties of Scouting adventures in the late 1950s.
This book is a collection of stories about Scouts learning to become adults, gradually, step by step. After learning to follow a path or trail or track, the Scouts eventually learn they are not simply following signs left behind by others; they are the signs left behind by their leaders for others to follow.
There's only one thing more chaotic than a Boy Scout Troop, and that's a Boy Scout Camp. The staff, mostly Boy Scouts themselves, walk a fine line between being a leader and a Scout. Many fall off the line, and it's funny.
