Confessions of a Straight as an Order of the Arrow Boy Scout

I was a Boy Scout.

Despite what my grandmother seemed to think, that was no merit badge of masculine heterosexuality in the circles in which I moved, despite those magnificent khaki green knee socks held up with red garters that made up the lower half of the summer uniform. If it were the babe magnet she claimed, the young women that I knew showed great restraint, never letting me see their weak knees or anything else for that matter, a failure that would not have been shared around a campfire.

Adolescent guys talk about sex. A lot. Even Boy Scouts. Even if we knew very little about it.

Maybe because we knew very little about it. It seems weird to hear the big controversy about gay scouts.

I don’t know which of my fellow scouts were gay, but I would imagine some were. That fact made absolutely no difference in my scouting experience, which may have been the best one ever thanks to one of the two best scoutmasters ever, Roy Wheat, of Oneonta’s Troop 160. (The other best scoutmaster was my Uncle Ralph, scoutmaster in Talladega. All those guys called him Uncle Ralph. But he really was my Uncle Ralph). But I digress, perhaps because a hard confession is coming up.

I guess I am making excuses now. More like confessing.

Calling each other fags and queers was commonplace at meetings and while hiking and camping, but certainly not meant to single anyone out. I’m pretty sure that description was directed at each of us at some point or another. We couldn’t be expected to be clever with our juvenile repartee all the time. Yes it was awful.

Maybe it isn’t a good excuse that we were just adolescents crazed with racing hormones. But it was certainly not meant to be as hurtful as calling someone a virgin. . We could not be certain of everyone’s sexual preference, but we were Boy Scouts, after all, and pretty certain everyone was truly a virgin, despite what was claimed around the campfire. And the truth hurts.

Anyway, I am sorry I didn’t speak out and say the right thing at the time. But I would have just been called more clever names.

I guess I was just scared.

I don’t remember of what. Don’t act like you didn’t do the same thing. That’s another thing about adolescent guys. We were scared of a lot of things. But mostly scared that someone would find out we were scared. So, I never said a word.

I seriously regret all that.

Because now I realize that some of my friends, who were just children at the time, were probably truly hurt and isolated by the words that were tossed around so casually and derisively.

There is nothing I can do about that now, except try to do better.