More about “Why Baltimore?” (28 Feb 15)

 

 

“Um, I get the part about Germany and Europe and the things you do for them.”  I explained that I have been a member of the Transatlantic Council (based in Europe)’s Executive Board and before that, a District volunteer within several communities in Germany — Goppingen, Stuttgart, Kaiserslautern, Karlsruhe for years. Every other year I help staff the European InterCamp camping event.

 

“I even get the stuff you try to do to help out in Tennessee.”  I explained that I work in south-central Tennessee at an research and development Air Force Base. No planes except the ones on static display at the two main gates. Because I’m there, I try to help the local Council and the district in which live within when there is no conflict of interest. 

 

“I know you live in Minnesota and that your parents used to live in Kentucky. I get that also.”  My home is in South Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota; and the “Homestead” — the place where my parents and siblings lived — is near Elizabethtown, Kentucky.  I still stop in and visit with Scouts and Scouters there in both places when I’m there.  The majority of my Scouting was done there in Kentucky and I’m happy to say that much of it was done at the Home of Armor when it was there at Fort Knox.

 

“I DON’T GET the Baltimore thing. Why do you want to almost break your neck in getting to Baltimore for a day — and it’s not even a full day — every winter? Is there someone there you need to see? A child maybe? Just what is the deal… as far as I know you’re not even *registered anything* there. Inquiring minds, you know…”

 

No Kei, I don’t have a “shadow anything” there in Baltimore.  No grown child out of wedlock. No sultry woman who greets me at the airport with a kiss and a rose saying “welcome home honey…let’s go before you have to make your appearance…”  You are absolutely correct: I am not registered with the BSA in Baltimore nor do I have family there. 

 

No, strike that. I DO have family there — a large African American Scouting family there. Blame it on a man named Leo Burroughs.

 

In 2001 during that year’s National Scout Jamboree, Mr. Burroughs — I can’t bring myself to calling him “Leo”, even though he granted me that right and honor several times — and I met. It was the fifth day of the Jamboree, what many of the staffers called “Rainbow Day” because that was the day in which African-American, Hispanic and Asian volunteers from all over the nation came to be the BSA’s guests for the day during that programs national exposition and camping event. The Jamboree occurs once every three to four years and it was important that year to show national pride in all of the BSA’s components.  Besides, the BSA had been continuing the slide downward as far as African American youth and volunteers.

 

Mr. Burroughs, along with some other Black Scouters from Chicago and Houston, all corralled around the National Executive Team tent that day, sharing their memories of Scouting past and Scouting to come with me and anyone else listening…I really had a great time those few hours I was there to take photos and do a news story on their Scouting glory.

 

After the Jamboree was over, I got orders to take my Army unit to what was to be called Operation Iraqi Freedom. We all returned heroes and heroines, and one of the many phone calls I got was from Mr. Burroughs.  He asked me if I would be kind enough to come to a Scouting meeting. He kept saying “Don’t need you to do any speaking. They’re tired of our people speaking and leaving…just come and be there. You don’t have to do anything, just be there please.”

 

He only had $50 to give me for my time. I told him when I got there to please put it back into his pocket…”I’ll let God reimburse me when He’s good and ready…”  I told my tired stories of how I joined Scouts, how I wanted to see if the stories I had read in SCOUTING and Boy’s Life were true or tales, and kept emphasizing that “I’m nobody important…the only difference between me and all of you are the locations of the housing. It’s still the same stuff. Scouting helped me, and it will surely help you…”

 

(I must of said that several dozen times that afternoon and evening.)

 

Mr. Burroughs invited me back the following year and placed me as a member of something called the “Roots of Scouting”.

 

Let me stop here and explain how Scouting REALLY came about.  Sir Robert Baden Powell was a British Army officer who, on his down days, wrote books detailing how military men can be better. Like most military men, he was also prized for his leadership and in one important instance, accepted a necklace made of wooden beads from an African prince. That necklace’s beads became the basis for the Wood Badge training program; and his military experiences and techniques became a best seller book back in England.  He saw that young men were reading the stories, the exploits and practicing the basic outdoor skills illustrated and explained in the book. He re-wrote sections of the more gory and adult-like content and repackaged it as a youth book called “Scouting for Boys”. That, as they say, is how things took off for Robert Baden Powell.

 

Roots of Scouting aimed to take Black youth living in Baltimore’s inner and outer corridors and offered them Scouting — not the Scouting of suburbia, but the Scouting of the true outdoors. The Scouting of camping and engineering.  The Scouting of morals and application of principles. The Scouting which said “okay. I can’t change your environment so I have to change your heart and sharpen your mind”. Leo Burroughs was and still is at the center of it. He insisted on the same opportunities for those Scouts as what the “well off ones” got, the ones living in Silver Spring or Towson — close to Baltimore but basically white.

 

Okay.

 

Every since that first meeting in Baltimore, with some breaks as I was deployed overseas and then returning back to deal with death and family loss, I attended the annual “African American Scouting Celebration” and try my best to be there for the Baltimore Area Heritage Court of Honor. Some years I was asked to speak. Other years, I just showed up in my best Scouting uniform and sit and talk with families and Scouts.

 

In 2005, thanks to some people who knew other people who knew still others, I was honored with the Silver Beaver Award from the Baltimore Area Council. The Silver Beaver is the highest volunteer service award a local Council can bestow on a volunteer.  The fact that I was not a member of that Council was not lost on the Council or it’s volunteer committee — who knew in part that I would come to Baltimore to help redevelop and restore their African American “ScoutReach” program. Baltimore gave up one of their allocated 11 Silver Beaver Awards to some guy very few knew and for service expanding beyond the boundaries of the cities and counties making up their Council.

 

I knew very few people there in Baltimore, Kei. Almost nobody knew me. What made it work is the shared skin tone and our desire to encourage as many of those boys present to stick with Scouting. There are so many things out there all pressing in for their time.  They see the amount of money drug distributors make with little effort. They see the bling they have and the influence — girls, liquor, guns — that they have and then they turn to look at Scouting. Very few Black faces of any kind.  Very few people come and tell them that they can make it…they can do other things than just be there and wait their turn in the “pipeline”.

 

So I go there to remind them that they can make it also, on a upward trail and that it’s not easy.

 

This year, Kei, it was Marcus’ turn to have my few minutes of mentoring with him. I had no idea that he was one of the recipients of the many leadership and community service awards that the Roots of Scouting, Inc. provided for. None. I didn’t even see his photo in the program until I was on my way back to the hotel where I’m typing to you and everyone else from.

 

I walked up to Marcus and immediately I saw that he did not have a rank patch on his shirt; so I asked him what rank he was. “Star”, he said to me thinking I’m sure “Who’s this fool with all of that stuff…”

 

I asked him when is he going to get Life, the next rung up the ladder toward excellence — Eagle Scout.

 

“Have a few merits (merit badges) to go and then the Board.”  The program was about to restart again and everyone was taking their seats. The jazz ensemble was kicking — and I wished that I had some change to toss their way and to get a card so I could order their CD.

 

Ms. Nona Diggs, the chair of the event, introduced me and I came up there.  See, if the planes were cooperating (and I knew for sure that I would be going there), I would have been there earlier this morning, make my brief remarks before introducing Lucas Hines, and sat down.  Because I came late, I got to say a few words before we all sang “We Shall Overcome” and stand for the playing of “Taps”.

 

(Lucas, a previous year’s honoree at this event, is this year’s BSA’s National Boy Scout youth representative who in part presented the 2014 BSA Report to the Nation earlier this week in Washington.  I was supposed to be there too, but that’s another posting *sour face*).

 

After the celebration, I found Marcus Hammond in the hallway selling Camp Cards.  I bought two. We talked. I encouraged him. I told him that his Eagle project need not be some pie-in-the-sky, super big deal. Read the (Baltimore) Sun for a week. Find something which a 14 year old can do. Outline it and pray about it (his eyes lit; I had no idea that he was a junior deacon at his church and for some old dude with rows of patches on his shirt telling him to “pray about” anything…”).  I gave him my card and I told him:

 

“Dude, I’m coming back next year. I expect to be talking with you about attending your Eagle Court of Honor.”

 

Marcus grinned and said “you are?” I nodded my head up and down and told him, “If God grants me the year, yep. I’ll be here for this and then for your Court of Honor.”

 

Kei — THAT is why I bust my butt, put in favors, and beg and plead for support to get me there and back. It’s because when I was growing up, my parents didn’t know how to support what I was doing. I’m sure they were proud of what I was doing, but it wasn’t sports. It wasn’t drama. It wasn’t church or band.  It was Scouting, and they like so many other Black and Hispanic and Asian and white families — simply go off what they heard or seen in the news or from others who were disappointed in their own Scouting experiences.

 

We don’t have a strong positive track record when it comes to Scouting in many communities. We suck.  So it’s up to people like me — people who have strong mentors like Leo Burroughs — to help families place their confidence and their children — into Scouting.

 

When I see God, I’ll ask Him if all the money I begged, borrowed or stole and then spent helped. I’m sure all He has to do is to wave His hand and I’ll see what I can’t see right now — strong positive Black citizens of great character — all over this land. I can’t be everywhere…but I can influence one Scout at a time.

 

Baltimore seems to be as good a place as any other.   

 

Settummanque!