Rick Obermeyer passes along a list of 100 Ways To Tell If You’re a Boy Scout. The author of the list was Chris Harvey.
Of course I hear Jeff Foxworthy when I read it.
You might be a Boy Scout if …
1. You have missed the party of the year to go camping.
2. Dressed for dinner, to you, means knee high socks, green shorts with
matching belt, and a tan shirt.
3. Casually dressed means, knee high socks, green shorts with matching belt,
and a BSA t-shirt.
4. You constantly smell of tobacco even though you do not smoke.
5. Half your shirts are class b’s.
6. All your shorts are green.
7. Disappearing for weeks at a time doesn’t raise questions from your
parents.
8. You make less than a quarter an hour over you summers.
9. You have over 100 contact names in your cell phone just for BSA related
stuff.
10. You know the Order of the Arrow has little to do with archery.
11. It is not uncommon to insult someone by calling them a tenderfoot.
12. You understand what the term “made eagle” means.
13. You have gotten out of a ticket because of your uniform.
14. You live at home, but spent 120 days/nights in the woods last year.
15. You have hiked 20 miles because you were bored.
16. You still walk to school.
17. You were first offered drugs at a summer camp.
18. You always have at least 1 knife no matter where you are.
19. Your nervous habit is playing with knife or Zippo.
20. Your girlfriends parents are quite used to number 19
21. You have lost at least one set of keys while doing water sports.
22. You have a patch collection that rivals your earth science teachers rock
collection.
23. Half your work experience on your resume is from staffing BSA events.
24. You know that NOAC doesn’t mean that you have no air conditioning.
25. You have used the excuse “my homework got soaked in the rain.”
26. The teacher believed it.
27. You judge people by what/how many patches are on their uniform.
28. You have stayed up all night, then completed a 50 mile hike.
29. You did it the next day too.
30. To you comfort is a crackling fire.
31. You have bought cigarettes while in BSA uniform.
32. Your most expensive outfit is a plywood uniform.
33. Your knife is worth more than you car.
34. You have swam in water deemed “unable to sustain life.”
35. You spend more on camp gear than your family at Christmas
36. You have been pulled over while in a van of 16 tired smelly people
wearing matching outfits.
37. You know how good the Boy Scouts really are.
38. You have lost a _____ (knife, ax, tent stake etc.) and found it a year
later.
39. You have had to carry one kid 1.5 miles because he didn’t tell you he
had the flu before you left.
40. You treated 10 kids for dehydration because you forgot to specify that
they all needed FILLED water bottles
41. You have had a meal of nothing but what you fond on the trail.
42. You know a mean recipe for wild carrot stew.
43. When you wander away from the group at the national forest, you find
your way back without a worry.
44. You have a cell phone but know that 98% of the time you are away from
home you won’t get reception.
45. You have never work a conventional job on a weekend.
46. Your idea of a small fire is less than 6 feet in diameter.
47. You know of 20 ways to start a fire without matches.
48. You have succeeded in them all.
49. You have never slept in a cabin willingly.
50. The best time of your life took place in the middle of nowhere.
51. You don’t remember the last time you didn’t come in on Monday all dirty
and sore.
52. You have come out of the shower dirty.
53. You enjoy sitting by the fire half awake carrying on conversations about
nothing.
54. You can play duiker.
55. You have played risk for 40 hours straight.
56. You have time to read things like this.
57. You have time to make stuff like this.
58. You have spent 16 hrs in a car for a one day camping trip.
59. You have missed 3 days of school in the past year for camping trips.
60.. You missed another 5 for being too tired top attend.
61. You have a hiked every trail in the county.
62. You know the local woods so well you can walk through them at night
without a light.
63. You have done so numerous times.
64. You have left a cam,up at 2 am because the new scouts got scared.
65. You have left camp at 3 am because the cocky older scouts got
hypothermia.
66. You realize that 90% of your friends are from campouts.
67. You have woke up with a raccoon staring you in the face.
68. It was nothing new.
69. You are labeled a pyre by everyone that has ever seen you out of school.
70. You have trained in first aid your whole life.
71. You have had to use everything you learned in a single weekend.
72. You train those younger in safety, but have personally never followed
while they were not around.
73. You can name 10 eagle scouts without even thinking.
74. You have walked into a store in full class A.
75. You have sung a song in the middle of McDonalds.
76. It was okay because 30 other people were doing it too.
77. The neighbors realized that the guy that came to your house with a beard
and strange dirty clothes every Sunday was you.
78. You hate bears because the always steal your food.
79. You have returned home after a summer away and been greeted with a “who
are you?”
80. You know that a group of Boy Scouts is not the group to argue with.
81. You have been made fun of for wearing a Class A.
82. You mad them scared of you by throwing your knife with precision into
the wall behind him.
83. You have made more friends while in the middle of the woods than you did
in 10 years at your school.
84. You have 2 rooms for BSA/camping gear.
85. You have burnt your scout handbook because it was the only dry tinder
you had.
86. You know what an 3000cubic inch IF pack is.
87. You are the one person that doesn’t look when someone says “LOOK A
_________.”(rabbit, dear, bear etc.)
88. Freeze dried food is a sizable chunk of your diet.
89. You have calluses on your shoulders from backpacking.
90. You have cleared a 3 mile trail through the brush only to find a trail
coming to the same spot from .25 miles down the road.
91. You constantly point out that people are using the wrong knot for that
particular job.
92. You have ate the roots of a dandelion.
93. You realize what you forgot while in the car and halfway there every
time.
94. You have paid for an entire weekends food supply in quarters.
95. The pizza place close to your favorite campground is on speed dial.
96. You are on first name basis with the local ER staff.
97. you know that if we all complied with national policy, council policy,
and scoutmaster policy we wouldn’t be able to get out of bed.
98. you read the entire Scout handbook, Scoutmaster handbook, and list of
national policy, just to prove sheath knives were not against the rules.
99. You set off metal detectors no matter where you go.
100. It takes 5 minutes to empty your pockets at the airport, police station
etc.
