VALUES OF SCOUTING REMAIN UNCHANGED, BUT THERE ARE NEW CHALLENGES TO MEET

In 1961, the Berlin Wall went up, Alan Shepherd became the first American in space with a 15-minute ride and Patsy Cline sang "I Fall to Pieces." No one had ever walked on the moon, used an ATM or played a video game. I was in the first grade.

Back then, the boy who lived across the street from me was Daryl Wagoner. Daryl was my best friend in the whole world.

Daryl was a year older than me. Daryl knew nearly everything.

Daryl was, after all, a big kid, a man of the world, a second grader.

Then one afternoon my world changed. It was not a change that I appreciated very much at the time. One golden September afternoon in 1961, Daryl's Cub Scout den met at his house.

I stood in our carport and looked across the street at Daryl's yard. The lawn was littered with running, screaming, laughing boys in blue uniform shirts and yellow neckerchiefs. They chased each other with little paper guns that they had made themselves. The guns popped when the boys flicked their wrists. They were all big kids, second graders. They were Cub Scouts.

Standing in the carport that sunny afternoon, watching Daryl and the other boys, there was nothing in the whole wide world that I wanted as much as to be a Cub Scout. But I could not. The injustice that first graders could not join Cub Scouts made my face hot. Something wet and burning rolled down my cheek.

Now, my father and my grandfather were both Scouters. Grandpa was a Scoutmaster back in the 1920s. Dad always had one job or another with the Boy Scouts. He took me to Camp Lewallen to see the pool dedication, and once we went north of town to see a camporee. I'm sure that he and Grandpa wanted me to be a Scout, but they never mentioned it. They never had to.

After a year, I joined Daryl and Peter Kinder and Jim and Steve Limbaugh in Pack 3 at Campus School. Later I joined them in Boy Scout Troop 3 at Centenary Methodist Church. I would wear a Scout uniform for 11 years and hike and camp and canoe and become an Eagle Scout.

Everything I have learned in life has been touched, in one way or another, by my experience with Scouting. I would never have known any of that if there weren't adults willing to be Cub and Boy Scout leaders. I would never have known any of that if Daryl's mom didn't volunteer to be a den mother.

My start in Scouting was not unique, but it shows how Scouting works. Scouting doesn't draw boys because their parents want them to be Scouts. And first graders (who can now join Tiger Cubs because the world is more just) do not join Cub Scouting to learn safety or responsibility or persistence. Boys join Scouting because it's fun. The simplest activities are more absorbing, more hilarious than any PlayStation game when the boys get to do things on their own. It is only years later that they realize they were given the tools to become responsible men.

On Feb. 8, the Boys Scouts of America will turn 90. The active, outdoor program that Lord Baden Powell started in England after the Boer War and which Chicago publisher William D. Boyce brought to America boomed as our country became more and more urban. By 1911 there were 61,495 Scouts and Scouters. Today there are almost 5.5 million. More than 91 million youths and adults have passed through the ranks since 1910.

Some things have not changed since 1961. Cub Scouts are still expected to do their best, and Boy Scouts still promise on their honor.

The values that build character are constant. But there are new challenges to meet. Scouts must now learn about sexual abuse and illicit drugs in addition to pop guns and pinewood-derby cars. It takes more to be prepared today than ever before.

There are boys all over Southeast Missouri who want to be Scouts just as much as I did in 1961. There are always boys who want to be in Scouting. The challenge is to find enough parents and other committed adults to provide the leadership that makes Scouting possible.

Our boys and our country have never needed Scouting as much as they do today. We wouldn't have Scouting without the work of millions of men and women leaders over the last 90 years. So to Lord Baden-Powell and to Daryl's mom, thank you.

Benjamin F. Lewis of Cape Girardeau is Cubmaster at Pack 8 sponsored by Trinity Lutheran Men's Club and vice district chairman of the Shawnee District, Greater St. Louis Area Council.