This Has to Be the Truth

Clarke and fellow Scoutmaster John stage the 'Pumpkin Man' — a man in a fluorescent orange jumpsuit with a giant mallet who smashes scouts' jack-o'-lanterns at a district camperee campfire, to thunderous approval; the pumpkin man's later visit to a Cub Scout camp did not go over as well.

The story of William 'Greenbar Bill' Hillcourt — from forming a patrol as a boy in Aarhus, Denmark, to becoming one of the most influential figures in the Boy Scouts of America, sparked by a broken leg from a falling crate of WWI surplus semaphore flagpoles.

A Scoutmaster lectures boys about enduring hardships of the past while secretly ordering a pizza delivery to the campsite.

In 1993, Clarke and camp staffer Pete Mendez started a LOG craze inspired by the Ren & Stimpy cartoon, which snowballed into scouts dragging logs on leashes with timber hitches and registering their 'pet LOGs' for ten cents at camp headquarters.

Donnie Grandy recounts how his first-grade son, watching Cub Scouts collect food from a window, asked to join because 'those boys have character' — he is now a 13-year-old Life Scout aiming to earn Eagle Scout in time for the Jamboree.

Clarke and his assistant scoutmaster got two obsessive Beavis and Butthead fans to permanently drop the act by adopting the catchphrases and attitude themselves on a backpacking trip.

Clarke recounts a summer camp story about a copperhead snake found living under a scout's tent platform, the increasingly chaotic extraction involving five adults and ten flashlights, and the wildly embellished version that spread through camp via the moccasin telegraph.

Keith Monroe of Troop 2 Santa Monica discovers that auctioning candy bars for pieces of trash is the only reliable way to get scouts to clean up camp.

The full life story of William 'Greenbar Bill' Hillcourt, from a Danish boy who taught himself Scouting to becoming the BSA's foremost author, patrol-method champion, and goodwill ambassador — all sparked by a crate of WWI surplus flagpoles falling on his leg.

The night a Medevac helicopter with a giant searchlight landed at summer camp after a staff swim injury, accompanied by a fire truck and the cheers of campers.

An 11-year-old John Fitzgerald Francis Kennedy writes a formal letter to his father in 1927 requesting a 30-cent allowance increase to buy Scout gear.

Andy and Clarke put an unopened can of Vienna sausages on a campfire; it explodes, leaving the can spotless and the sausages never found.

A new scout's disastrous first attempt at cooking hunter stew on a campout, redeemed by popsicles for dessert.

A memorable summer camp night involving intoxicated intruders, a medevac helicopter with a blinding searchlight sweeping through campsites, and a precautionary fire truck.

Keith Monroe — Scoutmaster of Troop 2, Santa Monica, for 42 years; his pseudonym was Rice E. Cochran, source of the Be Prepared quotations throughout the podcast. Clarke reads from his book: scouts bid pieces of collected trash to win candy bars — ten minutes later the campsite was spotless.

Garrison Keillor in Lake Wobegon Days on scoutmaster Einar Tingvold

Buying fireworks at camp for the 4th of July a couple decades ago — near misses; can't do it anymore

A West Point-style retreat ceremony at camp — going 90 years, full band, bugler, colours, marching; Clarke and George stood in for the absent camp director and program director, messed up the turns, then the flag got folded inside out; on tape you couldn't tell, but they were not happy with themselves

A copperhead found under a tent platform — discovered via the patrol log, quietly removed and released; by morning, camp gossip had turned it into a giant snake the scoutmaster killed and made into a hatband. Clarke names this the moccasin telegraph.

Rice E. Cochran — author of Be Prepared in 1952: The Life and Illusions of a Scoutmaster; a young Scoutmaster's first hike, and the troop's long-suppressed laughter when he finally took off the knapsack

Two scouts who never broke character as Beavis and Butthead — and the backpacking trip solution that made them stop instantly