“The real way to gain happiness is to give it to others.” Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the scouting movement
Service to the community and others is an important aspect of scouting around the world. Doing service projects together is one way that scouts from our young Cub Scouts to our older Eagle Scouts keep their promise to “to help other people at all times.” In the older Boy Scouts ranks from Tenderfoot to Eagle, community service is implicitly included in the requirement for each rank wherein a scout is required to “demonstrate Scout spirit by living the Scout Oath and Scout Law in everyday life.” This summer, some of our scouts participated in Summer of Service, helping to clean up the trails of Mt. Sanage, a favorite hiking location. They picked up twelve big bags of trash, and said there was still a lot to pick up! Other scouts helped clean up trails in Nagano Prefecture. Since Unit 758 started in 2016, four of Troop 758’s scouts have organized and performed community service projects to earn their Eagle Scout Rank. Some of these include holding a game day for local seniors, making improvements to their school, and organizing a hair donation drive. Scouting isn't just about earning badges and recognition. Scouting strives to prepare youth to become a responsible, participating citizens and leaders who are guided by the values of Scout Oath and Law. You make a living by what you get, but you make a life by what you give.
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(Repost from FB site, dated 3/11/2020)
Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the scouting movement, wrote that to Be Prepared means “you are always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty.” Today we remember the people lost and affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that struck March 11, 2011. I remember the moment it hit very well. My apartment in Nagoya swayed and I rushed to turn off the gas line and open the front door. Then I waited with my neighbors for the swaying to stop. Japan changed that day, and we started taking more interest in becoming prepared for natural disasters. Is your family prepared for a natural disaster? Do you have a hazard map of your area? Do you have stock of water and food? Is your furniture properly fixed so it doesn’t topple over? Does you family know where to meet? These are all things to think about once again today. Scouting teaches youth and families to be prepared. Cub Scouts learn skills through fun activities. Boy Scouts learn survival skills through camping and outdoor activities. All scouts learn to be a part of the community through volunteering. If you would like to join this wonderful world of scouting, check out our websites and send us an email. We are happy to arrange a visit to one of our meetings. The Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts are open to children of all nationalities ages five and older. All the children need is a basic command of English to follow the English-led activities, and a desire to have fun learning new things and adventures. Parents also play an active role in helping the scouts and units. Calling for volunteers! Are you an Eagle Scout? Do you have a skill you could teach our Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts? We'd love to have you visit and share your expertise with us! You can find more information on our websites or by contacting us directly. A dark mound of water came rolling toward me from out of the depths. My senses told me that my positioning was right. I turn the board and began paddling. After several strokes, I could feel the tail of my board start to lift as the wave rose underneath it. I looked back over my shoulder to determine exactly where the wave was going to break, then tucked my head and gave a few more hard strokes. The board began to slide down the peak. A smooth, sun-splashed wall of water stretched beneath me. The wave began to break beside me.
I leapt to my feet. Dropping down the steep face I became weightless. My arms lifted above my head when my body stretched to counteract my feet falling out from under me. The speed of my descent carried me far out onto the flat trough in front of the wave, where I began to make a long, arcing bottom turn. The compression from turning at this speed is tremendous. My legs tensed to resist this force that wanted to squash me flat. My board sank deep as I turned beneath this growing, mountainous wall of water. The breaking wave began to rumble loudly behind me. I angled up onto the face to set my line. The wind in my eyes made tears that run back across my temples. I could feel my wet hair flopping behind my head. The muffled sputter on the water thrown from the surfboard sounded like raindrops on a speeding car's windshield. Above me towered a green wall of water as tall as a two story house. I decelerated slightly as I climbed the face and it was then that the breaking wave overtook me. It was as if a cloud had passed in front of the sun. I was standing in a shadowed room built of a moving wall that was rushing upward, arcing high over my head. And this high ceiling only moved faster, falling over and down and crashing into the floor behind me. This green-hued tunnel was spinning all around me, making and breaking itself over and over again. Yet for all the movement, I felt motionless. Inside me was a deep silence. For the first time I felt in my belly the beat that measures the rhythm of the ocean. I moved spontaneously, my mind free to wonder at what was happening inside and around me. I understood what my brother had said so many times: I was riding with the wave. I had no notion of time passing until I knew it was time for me to leave. My front foot stepped forward and I move my weight onto it slightly to speed my passage. As I emerged from the tube the bright sun flashed in my eyes, and I felt a jolt as if I had been far away. I looked around, and realizing that I was still on my feet, felt as ecstatic as if I had outrun a roaring locomotive. The wave had already begun to grow smaller, and soon was a height equal to my own. I made a few playful turns and jumped over the top, flying through the air like a tamed bird that had tasted its first taste of freedom in the wild. I splashed into the cold water, surfaced, and inhaled deeply the crisp morning air. I let out a long, thrilled hoot. After climbing onto my board I sat watching as my brother emerged from deep within a cavernous tube. I reflected on my own triumph, and knew for the first time the strength granted by the humbling power of the ocean. I felt its rhythm pulsing deep within me. Seeing my brother’s face as he paddled up to me, I realized that to share this together was surely some of the best that life has to offer. We grinned at each other, our silence saying everything. Then we turned to paddle back out for another wave. Read part 1 ->
The birds were busy with their morning chatter as we entered the tree-covered foot path, and for a moment I felt as though my brother and I were birds, too: he in his traditional all-black suit, a crow, and me and my modern electric blue, a flightless peacock. He seemed to belong in such a wild place, and I felt like I had long ago been domesticated. He set a quick pace, and I tried to keep up, hobbling along on my cold bare feet. Times like this are sacred to my brother, when little is said but much is understood. I am always amazed how much he is able to see and learn just by walking through the woods, or watching the ocean from the coast. He might look at me and nod, as if to point and ask if I had noticed something, too. And afterwords, the manner with which he reveals what he has seen is filled with such reverence and awe, you might think he'd seen it in a church. But all I could think about now besides my cold, stinging feet, was how enormous the surf had looked from the road, and whether or not I stood in the good graces of King Neptune today. When the trail emerged from the trees beneath the red sandstone cliffs, the sound of the birds was replaced by the echoing thunder of the breaking waves. It sounded like the regular, relentless cannon fire of an invasion from the sea. My brother looked back to me, and I jerked my head to acknowledge the power we were hearing. The thunder and crack of every wave grew tighter the knot that was beginning to form in my stomach. The walk out to Billy-Bob’s is just short of a mile, and below the cliff, where the dirt underfoot turns to sand, the trail quickly bends to the right. The trees stop, and for the first time you see the breaking waves from the beach. This morning the water shone like mercury, and the offshore wind dropping over the trees in little blasts rippled it briefly before it turned to glass again. The sun was behind us, and as the waves were breaking a brilliant flash of light would light up the peak and streak like an arrow along the face of the wave. The waves had looked big from the hilltop, but I was taught long ago that without any reference for perspective, making estimates from that distance was highly inaccurate. Seeing them now from the beach, though, confirmed my fears. These were the biggest I had ever seen. Butterflies took flight in my stomach as my brother put his arm around my shoulder. "It's big today, bro,” he started. "And I can remember times when I felt what you might be feeling right now. But there are two things I want you to remember. First, and I told you this time and time again: we play safe so that we can get up and do it again tomorrow. And second, it's not just you and ol’ Neptune out there today, it's you and me an ol’ Neptune, bro. We can do it together. “ As I stood there listening to my brother, his brown eyes shone. His tan face, cheeks still flushed from the cold morning walk, was surrounded by short, wheat-colored hair. He stood firm and straight in his black suit, his green surfboard at his feet. I did feel safe in his company, but I knew that a time would come soon when I would be on my own. I looked up to the waves, took a slow deep breath. I watched another perfect set of giant hollow tubes break. "I'm going out, Erik, "I said. "Either I can sit here on the beach and watch, or I can go out there and know what it is like to stand inside one of those barrels.” We stood together for several sets, watching and learning how the waves were breaking today. We counted the seconds between each wave and between the sets, and saw that the peak did not shift, but was breaking at the same place every time. As the sun warmed our backs, we slowly moved to the water’s edge, and began the final act of the surfing ritual: rubbing the waxed surfboard deck with sand to roughen its grip, and then attaching the rubber surf leashes to our ankles. We walked through the water over smooth cobble rocks until we were knee deep, and stopped to watch the approaching set waves. One of the first surfing rituals that I had learned was that it was at this moment in a civilized man's life that it is permissible for him to pee in his pants. I could barely pee morning, and when I did it offered me no relief. "Get ready, bro. This will be the last wave of the set," my brother said, his voice full of encouragement. “You'll have to paddle hard, but only ‘till we get to the channel. I know you've got it in you. Let's do it! “ The water was cold on my hands and face as we jumped onto our boards and started paddling. It didn't bother me like it might have another time, though. The giant waves marching toward me were all that I could see. “Okay, King Neptune,” my brother said just loud enough for me to hear, “We've come today to play. Please show us the gentleness in your strength.” I said a silent Amen. The waves were breaking well out from us, so that by the time we had to punch through them, much of their strength was gone. Still, burrowing under 10 foot high walls of seething, churning water is no easy thing, and after every wave I was more and more out of breath. From what we had learned while standing on the beach, the set waves would be coming again any second. My muscles began to burn, and my attention turned inward to muster what strength I had left. “Paddle to the right, bro, and you'll find the channel.” These words came without strain from my brother, and filled me with the strength to push the last 15 yards. I looked up to see his smiling face, and felt relief to see that he had stopped paddling. “You made it, bro. Take a break,” he said, and rolled off his surfboard and onto his back, barking like a seal and slapping his feet together. His playfulness startled me, but the life or death feeling inside of me quieted as I watched him, and I let out a few nervous barks, too. The channel has no breaking waves, and affords a safe place to watch and learn. But with the waves this big, we could see only dark mountains of water and the crisp profile of the breaking wave as we sank deep into the trough between every wave. We would rise to the crest again every 10 or 12 seconds and look quickly to sea and shore, to see what was coming and to plot our position. We watched like this as two sets of waves came crashing through. Being this close to the waves leaves no doubt about their size, and these waves were easily big enough and hollow enough to drive a freight train through. "You've surfed here plenty, and know how to line up points on the land to plot your position on the water,” my brother coached. "Look for the boil on the water where the waves are breaking over the rock shelf– that's the takeoff zone. It's big today, but Billy’s never gets cleaner. Tuck in those huevos, and have yourself some fun. And bro, I'm stoked to be out here sharing it with you.” I said a silent prayer to the Water King, and started moving toward the breaking waves. I was sure to keep checking over my shoulder to refer back to the land, knowing that when the top of the southernmost palm tree on the point lined up with the top of Mount Onyx in the distance, I'd be near the takeoff position. From my side I heard my brother noting the boil on the water surface just ahead. This was a classic time in a surfer’s life, when all knowledge and preparation hinge on one thing: commitment. I was in the zone, and the set waves were approaching. What came next was entirely up to whether or not I could seize the moment and ride not on the wave, but with the wave. I was on my own; there was nothing my brother could do to help me now. To be continued… We're starting off Troop 758's blog with a short story about friendship and adventure, written by one of our Scoutmasters.
A Day Like No Other (Part 1 of 3) A tapping on my shoulder woke me. It was dark, and all I could see in the dim light from the hall was my brother’s silhouette. I smelled fresh coffee. “Come on,“ he said, “the offshore isn’t going to wait all morning just for us. Remember, every day you don’t is another day you won’t.” I closed my eyes again. I had heard this so many times that to forget it would be impossible. This little saying was his reminder to himself that life offers no second chances to those not willing to seize the opportunity that every new day offers. He’d been away to college for several years, and since his return our times together seemed more important to him. We’ve been making these Saturday morning surf trips together every week for months. As much as I enjoyed them, he still had to coax me out of the sack. “Yeah, yeah. Give me a minute,” I said and rolled over onto my back. He made a comment that the surf today could be really good. After I sat up and took a few deep breaths, he turned and walked out of the room. I dressed and made my way to the kitchen, where he was already eating. The wet suits and blue ice chest that we would be taking with us were in a pile by the door. Through the window I could see the porch light shining onto the car, the surfboards on the racks, ready to go. An omelette and toast were sitting in the skillet on top of the stove. “Let’s go, bonehead. It’s first light already,” he said, putting his dirty dishes in the sink. He pointed to the omelette. “You can put that on a plate and eat it in the car.” I looked outside again and saw the light in the eastern sky. “You get my wetsuit, too?” “Yeah, and I put an old leash of mine on your board . Did you forget that yours broke last week?” I mumbled something as I remembered how many times old Neptune had knocked me off my board and into the washing machine, and I realized I must have overlooked the broken leash when I finally crawled onto the beach. Too many times I felt like the old sea god got the better of me, but it was always hard to admit this out loud. My brother never considered such encounters as failings, though; to him, they were lessons in the relationship between a man, his knowledge, and the sea. He’d tell me that being in the water was the only way to learn it’s moods. He finished packing the gear into the car while I put my breakfast onto a plate and made a cup of hot chocolate. It was a cold morning, but when I got in the car it was already warm inside. My brother drove. While I ate I thought about how he had moved so easily in the surf last weekend, always being in the right place at the right time, never getting caught inside by the set waves. When the bigger set waves did come, he was always there to ride not on them, but with them, as he always said. His 15 years on the water had taught him that the only way to make it in the ocean was to learn it’s ways and to move with them. The morning light grew brighter as we drove along the coast highway. Between the eucalyptus trees, still gray in the predawn light, the ocean looked like dark corduroy, parallel lines lying side-by-side as far as I could see. There were a few parked cars at the more accessible surf spots, other early risers trying to catch a few uncrowded waves before the Saturday mob appeared. The flag at the Arenas Blancas tower was blowing off shore, and a little to the north. “When I was out last night at sunset, the swell seemed like it was starting to build out of the north west again,“ said my old brother of the sea, as I sometimes thought of him when he made such pronouncements. “It’s been a Southwest swell all week, though, as this warm tropical storm was passing to the south. My bet is that we’ll find the best waves at Billy Bob’s this morning, and the wind should be a little more offshore there, too.” Billy Bob’s can be a good break, but it can be fickle. Often the walk in was a waste of time, especially on a cold morning like this. He glanced over at me and winked, certain that what we would find there would be worth the effort. I only nodded, my mouth full of spicy Spanish omelette. When he says these things, I sometimes feel like a tourist in Hawaii hearing the tour guide say, “If you want to ride the really big surf, Sunset’s the place to go.” And I’d probably go, because that’s where he said it was good. I’ve learned enough from the surfing magazines, though, to know that I’d probably die there, too. But my brother always says the reason to play safe is so we can get up and do it again tomorrow. I knew he considered my abilities as well as the always changing ocean and weather conditions when he made these decisions. His seasoned judgment had saved me from learning a lot of lessons the hard way. We turned onto the red dirt road that led to Billy Bob’s, and stopped at the hillcrest to check the swell. I zipped my coat against the cold wind as I stepped out of the car. The sun was just rising above the blue gray fog that lay over the coastal mountains. There were no cars in the red dirt parking area at the bottom of the hill. “Look at that,” my brother said, motioning with this chin towards the ocean. Just then, a clean peak broke white on the dark water, dark shoulders forming on both sides. There was nobody riding the wave, and that made it hard to judge it’s size. Wave after wave continued to break, each one wrapping left around the point and out of sight below the cliff. This was the first time I’d ever seen the breaking waves from the road. We usually stopped here just to check the wind and swell direction. “I haven’t seen B-bobs like this since the winter of ‘83,” my brother commented, and I felt a shiver go up my spine. That had been a record year for big surf in the North Pacific when I had only sat on the beach and watched the giant breakers. ”And no one‘s out,” he continued, “we’ve got the place to ourselves.” As we watched the giant waves, he put his hand on my shoulder. I knew this was meant to offer me some assurance, that whatever old Neptune had in store for us, it would only be the two of us. But as I continued to watch the breaking waves, I felt uneasy. My body felt stiff in the cold morning wind and my stomach tightened in apprehension of what I might be getting myself into. We got back into the car and bounced over the last half mile of rocky road. The car stopped in a patch of sunlight and we got out. Our talk was full of anxious excitement as we changed into our wetsuits. The breakfast in my stomach felt like warm coal in the furnace as I stripped naked in the chill morning air and pulled the rubber suit on. “Take a big drink of water,” my brother urged as we finished changing. “It might be a long time before we get out of the water. And slide this extra surf wax under your sleeve. It’s a long walk back to the car if you need it.” He sometimes annoyed me with his air of superiority when he said such things, but his many stories of the stupid calamities he had witnessed on his surf trips abroad had impressed me with the need to think ahead. And today I had to agree that from all we had seen from the hilltop, we would have no energy to waste. To be continued… |
Parents' Circle
Welcome to the Parents' Circle, written and managed by Troop 758's parents. You'll find stories, recipes, tips for being an effective scout parent and troop leader, etc. ArchivesCategories |