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I was introduced to shooting at Philmont in 1957. Boys Life became my conduit to applying Scouting to my life. It was my magazine, my stories, my interest. Not school, not adults, but mine. It opened the world to me. It reinforced the need for self reliance and clear thinking and taught me to actually be prepared for problems. The lessons learned served me well in the field and combat.

I liked the summer jamboree, when there were shooters from wide and far. Got called back to shoot at the camp finals a few times, but I couldn't get enough of those hand thrown minis for those old smooth bore Remington bolt .22s. Chips were like smoking 'em. I also like the ads in the back of Boy's Life, plans and kits for the coolest projects in the world, even talked mom into ordering a sea horse and little quail hatchery kit. If it came up today, I wouldn't be overly excited if a grandson asked me what I thought about joining, and we don't need yet another inclusivity media campaign for the kids.

The above posts bring back many memories of Boy Scouting, Order of the Arrow, serving on the Staff at summer camp and Pioneer camp. We had great leaders without a whisper of scandal. The Boy Scouts were a large part of my Life and helped form my personality. Stil to this day, I tie my boots with a square knot and thr "dummy chord" on my walking cane to a belt loop with a bowline. These are among the knots I learned in the scouts. I received Boy's Life the whole time and read them from cover to cover in one sitting. The Jim Corbett story must have been after my time but have read his books and there is no doubt it would have been one of the first story's I would have read. I remember wearing a Cub Scout Knife to school, clipped onto my uniform belt on meeting days. Today they would close the school and call S.W.A.T.
Mike

Thanks for starting this thread Stan, which is appropriate for Father's Day and for a gun related forum.
My father left when I was 8, and were it not for the Boy Scouts and reading Ruark's "The Old Man and the Boy" my life could have turned out much differently.
"Boy's Life" had lots of gun related ads, and my first gun (much to my mother's horror) was an Ithaca Saddlegun



Stan's NRA medal



I'll post some more after church

"A Scout Is Reverent" (which I believe the Scouting/USA is doing away with)

Both the Oath and Scout Law have been turned upside down and inside out by the Scouting Powers That Be.

Steve, is that "Big Game Shooting in Nepal (with leaves from the Maharaja's Diary)" by Smythies?

Yes, that is the one.

I'm sure everyone in Scouting recalls Norman Rockwell's "The Scoutmaster" cover on Boys' Life Feb. 1956



In an inadequate attempt to pay back the men that invested in me as a Scout (Eagle 1967), I started volunteering with Troop 84 in Kansas City in 95' (my old troop had disbanded.) We had a yearly camp out near a range to introduce the Scouts to shotguns - and almost none had previously shot. I had a Ruger 28g upon which I installed an adjustable comb and LOP butt, and I think they all came away smiling.
I also started volunteering at the Health Lodge a Bartle Scout Reservation on Truman Lake, then Camp Geronimo near Pine here in AZ starting in 2006. When full, Bartle had about 1,700 Scouts, Adult Leaders and Staff, and we had some wild medical emergencies.

A boy's future was once built on a foundation of family (< than 25% of households in the U.S. today have both a mother and a father), school (public schools now DEI indoctrination camps), church (regular house of worship attendance in the U.S. is now about 30%) and Scouting (In 1972, about 31% of the 19 million boys aged 10 - 19 were in Scouting; in 1998, about 25 percent.) That foundation has been purposefully destroyed, and boys have never been as lost, confused, despondent, angry, and without purpose; which is reflected by the marked increase in suicide and suicide attempts in grade and middle schools.

This is a letter I sent when I stopped volunteering in 2013
Like tens of thousands of men and boys, I’m mourning the death of one of the few remaining institutions that have existed to develop character, honor, integrity, and courage in young men. The only father many boys know today is their mother’s current live-in, Protestant churches have replaced Biblical truth with ‘feel good’ psychology, and the same activists that are destroying Scouting, and who will not be satisfied until adult leadership is open to any variant of LGBTQIA, now control the public education of our children. The military and prison system cannot correct the expected results.
I would not be the man that I am were it not for Scouting. My small service to Scouting has been pay-back to the men that enabled me to be a scout, modeled what I hoped to become, and expressed in action and words their care for me. I am pessimistic that anything can replace what Scouting once was. My heart is heavy with this loss, which will have enormous consequences for this country.
Pray for our boys. Pray for America. Satan won a big one.

But we, as men, can do what we can to get a boy outside, with a gun in his hands.
"On My Honor" still matters, but must be taught and modeled by men.

The 1960s issues are available here. Use the bar underneath the covers to scroll through the dates, then click on the cover you want to read
https://books.google.com/books?id=TVGeB4AU0_4C&source=gbs_all_issues_r&cad=1



November 1967.

[quote=Drew Hause].....A boy's future was once built on a foundation of family (< than 25% of households in the U.S. today have both a mother and a father), school (public schools now DEI indoctrination camps), church (regular house of worship attendance in the U.S. is now about 30%) and Scouting (In 1972, about 31% of the 19 million boys aged 10 - 19 were in Scouting; in 1998, about 25 percent.) That foundation has been purposefully destroyed, and boys have never been as lost, confused, despondent, angry, and without purpose; which is reflected by the marked increase in suicide and suicide attempts in grade and middle schools....[quote]

I'm commenting to thank you for the link to the Boy's Life back issue, but I can't help noticing it's the same sociopolitical decay, expoused by some friends of the double gun, tacitly excused by those who claim to be unaffected. I do not think "we" should bother with a letter, it will be belittled as a joke.

Really great memories, scrolling through a couple of those issues. The plain old Sears catalog from that era was another drift off into dream land.