Scout Identity

What do Steven Spielberg, Gerald Ford, James Stewart, Walter Cronkite, Ross Perot, Hank Aaron, Mark Spitz, and Neil Armstrong all have in common?

They were all Boy Scouts.

Today marks the formation of the Boy Scouts, 100 years ago. It's an organization that still claims nearly three million members.

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AN OLDIE BUT A GOODIE

A friend of mine spent two weeks at a Boy Scout Camp out west. Halfway through their stay, the boys received "care" packages from home and many of them contained checks for spending money. A group of them went into town to cash these checks at the local bank.

One Scout was having some trouble because he'd lost his wallet. He insisted that he had identification on him, but didn't want to show it. The young woman who was serving as a teller that day, however, insisted upon seeing it. So the young man climbed up onto the counter and whispered into her ear.

She motioned for him to come around behind the counter where they could have a little more privacy. My friend, who was tall enough to see over the counter and keep an eye on things, reported that the blushing boy pulled out his shirt, folded down his belt, and then pulled up the label on his underwear.

The teller could see his name neatly written there with an indelible marker.

She cashed his check.

[originally seen in Andychap's The_Funnies]

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WORD for YOUR WEEK: Occasionally you hear that a child is precocious. What does this mean? It is usually applied to children but really describes anything that shows advanced levels of maturity, or development. The original Latin word was praecox, from "prae" (meaning before - we use it as the word "pre"), and the word "coquere" (originally meant "to cook" but it was also applied to something that ripened). The word was originally applied to flowers that bloomed early or fruit that ripened before others that were planted at the same time.

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