When I was 11 years old, I was a member of the Guide Patrol (what is now called the 11-year-old scout patrol now in LDS scouting). Every Wednesday after school we would walk up the steep hill from the school to the church next door and learn how to become a scout (and a man) in Guide Patrol.
i was fortunate to have my Mom as my Guide Patrol Leader. Not because she was my mom, but because she was probably the world's best Guide Patrol Leader. Scouting for Mom wasn't show and tell. It was learn and do. I don't know if they had Wood Badge in those days. I do know she never went to Wood Badge. But she could have taught it.
We learned the Scout Law. I can still remember reciting it with her. I don't remember reciting it in the classroom—I remember reciting it in a car coming back from an outdoor cooking experience. "A scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, Reverent." That's from memory. And I learned what the Scout Law meant by watching Mom living it, and by observing it in the lives of the scouts who had already been through her patrol.
We learned to use a knife and an ax, safely and well. She didn't tell us how to sharpen a knife. She gave us a dull knife and some sharpening materials, and she expected us to sharpen the knife until we could whittle a feather stick (for starting fires) with it. When we got frustrated, she didn't take over for us. She taught us what to look for and how to get the results we needed. It's largely thanks to her that I can still sharpen a knife to get a shaving edge. And I learned the difference between chopping with a sharp axe and a dull axe in a Guide Patrol axe yard. One of Covey's Seven Habits was learned by this scout before Covey had even thought about writing his book.
We leaned to cook over a fire without utensils through eating our efforts—some delicious, some barely edible. But we ate what we made, and we found out that life is better when you do things right than when you take shortcuts. And I learned that I could be pretty self-sufficient. I remember one long day of fishing in Millcreek Canyon with my friend Brent. We had ridden our bikes to the canyon, and had fished until afternoon, with only one small trout to show for it. We were starving. We cleaned the fish (with our self-sharpened knives), then found a flat rock in the stream, and heated it in a fire (started with a feather-stick and only one match), then cooked the fish on the flat rock. It was some of the best fish I have ever eaten, even to this day.
When it was time to learn orienteering, we did a little bit of classroom work. Then we went to a wide open location in the Jordan River Narrows (maybe 8 square miles). Mom had set up an orienteering course that went up and down hills, through the brush, across irrigation ditches, through an abandoned gravel quarry, and ended up with candy bars for a prize when we found the end of the course after a total distance of about two miles. And every one of the scouts found the prize.
For trailing and tracking, we went to the narrows again. We took turns trying to make a trail that couldn't be followed, and trying to leave a marked trail that could be followed. By the end of the day, we could all track one another, and we knew how to leave effective trail signs to help others on their journey.
We learned knots. Not just how to tie them, but we learned to use them to accomplish things we wanted. To this day, it's second nature to tie a clove hitch when I want a knot on a rail that won't slip, or a bowline when I want a loop that won't tighten but can be easily untied. With knots, as in life, knowing how to do the right thing at the right time makes all the difference.
As I look back more than 40 years to my time in the Guide Patrol, I can see that my life was immeasurably changed by a woman who saw a vision of what a group of sometimes rowdy boys could become. She understood how to help us grow from boys to men. She taught us skills that not only helped us in our boyish activities, but pointed the way to becoming men of sound character, who embody all the attributes of the Scout Law. Her teaching was effective—so effective we didn't really realize how much we were being taught until much later. I'm a much better man for having been in the Guide Patrol for troop 578 in the Great Salt Lake Council, and for being taught at the feet of my mother.
My Mom—my Guide Patrol leader—my hero.
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