Looking back on my life I realize I had the blessed fortune to have some good mentors. There was my waterman grandad who tought me the love and repect of the water, the marshes rich with waterfowl and deer hunting. My dad, who I learned more from than many others, about love of country and duty. Andy Warden, the old machinist who brought me back to reality, and Mr. Van. The last one being our scoutmaster of troop 469.
The boy scouts are a fine experiance for a boy, getting out in nature with men he can learn from. Many skills are tought, woodsmanship, first aid, campcrafts, and most of all, the art of using a pocket knife for almost everything.
My dad realizing he would be gone often on overseas trips got me into the scouts. He wanted me to grow up having the same outdoors experiances he had, and he trusted the scout troop at our church in Wheaton Maryland. At that point in time Wheaton was a little crossroads out in rural rolling countryside, the suburban sprawl that was to come in twenty years had'nt happened yet. All around our little developement was woods. Glorious easteren hardwood forest type of woods. Being from a land of flat salt marshes and piney woodds, this was different, and I loved it. Big sprawling oaks, maples, towering poplars. And along the creeks and damp ground were the huge white sycamores. All this in hilly coutryside with deep gullies and creekbeds.
My dad figured with the boy scouts I would get to thoughly explore this new world, and he was right. The small troop sponcered by our church was made up of the local nieghborhood kids, and I soon made friends and fit in. In turn we were led by Mr. Van.
As scoutmaster, Mr. Van led us as if we were a company of Marines like he had led in the war. A tall ramrod strait figure, he cut an imposing form with short cut silvery hair, and an air about him that no slack was to be tolerated. A rugged type, he was sort of a Sam Elliot type of figure with a grey/silver moustache that never had a single hair out of place. Personally, I don't think there was a hair that dared to be out of place. If the boy scout regulations said that the troop number was to be one inch below the shoulder seam, then it had not be 3/4 of an inch, or even an inch and an 1/8. He would inspect our troop every Friday evening at the start of a meeting, and whoa to the scout who was slack. But as much as we sometimes feared him, we reveared him. We even went and got our hair cut short like he had, in a military style. The moustaches would have to wait another decade or so.
Aside from being a strick scoutmaster, he was a man of many talents that us boys had mighty respect for. He was great with a knife. Mr. Van was an expert whittler, and he had whittled custom neckkerchief rings in many figures. One he wore was a head of an indian he said was Sitting Bull. Another was a walnut ring with Nordic looking geometric lines entwining around the whole ring. Sometimes durring the meetings in the church basement, he would whittle with a small serpintine two blade jack that he had the small blade honed like a scalple. Other times he would use his genuine Russell barlow. It became obvious after a while that Mr. Van liked his pocket knives, and had good taste in brand and quality. When Mr. Van took out a knife to whittle we all tried to move a bit closer to see what he had that day. But the materpiece was his scout knife.
Durring the depression many companies went under, among them knife companies. Some of these companies were offshoots of the gun companies like Remington. Some of the nicest knives were made by Remington, with thick brass liners and jigged bone and stag handles. Like Mr. Vans Remington scout knife.
He had it hanging by the official boy scout belt shackle in plain sight, just to torment us I suppose. Dark rich brown jigged bone scales, with nickle silver bolsters. On the rare occasion that a scout would get up the nerve to ask to see it, Mr. Van would unclip it and we'd get to handle it with great reverence. Maybe the memories are rose colored, but it seems to me that the brass liners were almost twice as think as our later day scout knives, and the bone scales thicker as well. Even at our young age, when we handled our knives after Mr. Van's, ours seemed a bit less of a scout knife. Of course scout knives being like TL-29's, had a long list of "official" makers, and probably as long a list of unofficial "official" makers. There must have been some manufacturing variance.
On campouts Mr. Van would show us survival tricks in the woods, using our pocket knives in the camp crafts merit badge program. He showed us how to take down a good size sappling without a hatchet, using our scout knives to make a V-groove around the base of the tree to create a stress line for it to break off at when bent over. We may not have a hatchet or sheath knife with us in an emergency, he'd tell us, but we should always have a pocket knife. He also showed us how to use our official scout sheath knives with the stacked leather washer handle, to split wood by battoning in case we did not have a hatchet, to get at some dry wood to get a campfire going. He was a good teacher and we learned well. He'd watch as we broke the dead wood into lenghts and quartered it by battoning with our sheath knives, and cut a little pile of shavings of dry wood. Then he'd give us our one match, and one match only. He'd show us how to do it by example, and he made it look so easy. he even had a cool way of lighting the barn burner strike anywhere matches by flicking the head with his thumb nail. We copied that too, and practiced flicking the matchhead with a thumb nail. It got to the point we all could copy his style untill Bobby Ryerson did it one day, and a piece of the matchhead broke off under his thumb nail. We thought he was doing a Hopi fire dance or something untill we figured out his screams were shrieks of agony. It was pretty spectactular, how burning phosphorus can melt a thumb nail. It gave us food for thought, and we'd just use a rock or something from then on.
But the hight of Mr. Vans skill with his knife came at a jamboree. Our little troop went to an east coast gathering of scouts down in Virginia, and it was a glorious time of outdoors games, competitions, hikes, night bonfires and cookouts. In addition to camp craft competitions by the scouts, the scout masters also took part. One afternoon there came the contest to make the perfect fuzz stick. Now in those days the fuzz stick was considered by the official boy scout manual to be a very important thing to be able to do well. Not only was it a judge of your carving, but it was good to get a fire going. Mr. Van and some of the other troops scoutmasters sat down one afternoon in the big tent by the headquaters and went to it.
We watched with baited breath to see which knife he would use. With slow deliberateness he unclipped the Remington scout knife from his belt and then took off his leather baskett weave belt with the silver ranger buckle. Laying the belt inside up, he slowly stropped his scout knife before he started. All the scout masters had an equal size piece of dry wood. They set to work.
Going slowly they all started getting thin little curls of wood. We watched Mr. Van with rapt attention. He worked slowly, using a slow pushcut to curl the wood. He always told us that a good curl should be thin enough to read a newspaper through. One by one the other soutmasters finished. It was inevitable that some curls would break off durring the chore. Most of the ones who finished had small wood chips that they brushed from thier laps when they stood, but so far Mr. Van only had two little chips fall. Finally Mr. Van was the only one left still carving. In the hot summer heat, most everyone once in a while mopped thier brow with a bandana. Not Mr. Van. He looked as cool and relaxed as if he were back at the church basement. He seemed it ignore everything exept the stick of wood in his left hand.
Finally he stood up and just those two little chips fell from his lap, and he walked straitbacked to the judges table and laid his fuzz stick in front of them. It was so perfect, it may well have been a picture from our official boy scout handbook. Each curl was translucent, and so long there were as many as three or four layers in it, like a clock spring. Mr. Van had only had those two curls fall of and he was the hands down winner. It was the perfect example of the official fuzz stick.
Slowly he wiped off the dark grey blade of the Remington, and hung it back on his belt. I think it was at the east coast jamboree that Mr.Van became a demi-god to troop 469.
But true deity status would come later with his shooting exibition using his little .22 BSA Martini.
The boy scouts are a fine experiance for a boy, getting out in nature with men he can learn from. Many skills are tought, woodsmanship, first aid, campcrafts, and most of all, the art of using a pocket knife for almost everything.
My dad realizing he would be gone often on overseas trips got me into the scouts. He wanted me to grow up having the same outdoors experiances he had, and he trusted the scout troop at our church in Wheaton Maryland. At that point in time Wheaton was a little crossroads out in rural rolling countryside, the suburban sprawl that was to come in twenty years had'nt happened yet. All around our little developement was woods. Glorious easteren hardwood forest type of woods. Being from a land of flat salt marshes and piney woodds, this was different, and I loved it. Big sprawling oaks, maples, towering poplars. And along the creeks and damp ground were the huge white sycamores. All this in hilly coutryside with deep gullies and creekbeds.
My dad figured with the boy scouts I would get to thoughly explore this new world, and he was right. The small troop sponcered by our church was made up of the local nieghborhood kids, and I soon made friends and fit in. In turn we were led by Mr. Van.
As scoutmaster, Mr. Van led us as if we were a company of Marines like he had led in the war. A tall ramrod strait figure, he cut an imposing form with short cut silvery hair, and an air about him that no slack was to be tolerated. A rugged type, he was sort of a Sam Elliot type of figure with a grey/silver moustache that never had a single hair out of place. Personally, I don't think there was a hair that dared to be out of place. If the boy scout regulations said that the troop number was to be one inch below the shoulder seam, then it had not be 3/4 of an inch, or even an inch and an 1/8. He would inspect our troop every Friday evening at the start of a meeting, and whoa to the scout who was slack. But as much as we sometimes feared him, we reveared him. We even went and got our hair cut short like he had, in a military style. The moustaches would have to wait another decade or so.
Aside from being a strick scoutmaster, he was a man of many talents that us boys had mighty respect for. He was great with a knife. Mr. Van was an expert whittler, and he had whittled custom neckkerchief rings in many figures. One he wore was a head of an indian he said was Sitting Bull. Another was a walnut ring with Nordic looking geometric lines entwining around the whole ring. Sometimes durring the meetings in the church basement, he would whittle with a small serpintine two blade jack that he had the small blade honed like a scalple. Other times he would use his genuine Russell barlow. It became obvious after a while that Mr. Van liked his pocket knives, and had good taste in brand and quality. When Mr. Van took out a knife to whittle we all tried to move a bit closer to see what he had that day. But the materpiece was his scout knife.
Durring the depression many companies went under, among them knife companies. Some of these companies were offshoots of the gun companies like Remington. Some of the nicest knives were made by Remington, with thick brass liners and jigged bone and stag handles. Like Mr. Vans Remington scout knife.
He had it hanging by the official boy scout belt shackle in plain sight, just to torment us I suppose. Dark rich brown jigged bone scales, with nickle silver bolsters. On the rare occasion that a scout would get up the nerve to ask to see it, Mr. Van would unclip it and we'd get to handle it with great reverence. Maybe the memories are rose colored, but it seems to me that the brass liners were almost twice as think as our later day scout knives, and the bone scales thicker as well. Even at our young age, when we handled our knives after Mr. Van's, ours seemed a bit less of a scout knife. Of course scout knives being like TL-29's, had a long list of "official" makers, and probably as long a list of unofficial "official" makers. There must have been some manufacturing variance.
On campouts Mr. Van would show us survival tricks in the woods, using our pocket knives in the camp crafts merit badge program. He showed us how to take down a good size sappling without a hatchet, using our scout knives to make a V-groove around the base of the tree to create a stress line for it to break off at when bent over. We may not have a hatchet or sheath knife with us in an emergency, he'd tell us, but we should always have a pocket knife. He also showed us how to use our official scout sheath knives with the stacked leather washer handle, to split wood by battoning in case we did not have a hatchet, to get at some dry wood to get a campfire going. He was a good teacher and we learned well. He'd watch as we broke the dead wood into lenghts and quartered it by battoning with our sheath knives, and cut a little pile of shavings of dry wood. Then he'd give us our one match, and one match only. He'd show us how to do it by example, and he made it look so easy. he even had a cool way of lighting the barn burner strike anywhere matches by flicking the head with his thumb nail. We copied that too, and practiced flicking the matchhead with a thumb nail. It got to the point we all could copy his style untill Bobby Ryerson did it one day, and a piece of the matchhead broke off under his thumb nail. We thought he was doing a Hopi fire dance or something untill we figured out his screams were shrieks of agony. It was pretty spectactular, how burning phosphorus can melt a thumb nail. It gave us food for thought, and we'd just use a rock or something from then on.
But the hight of Mr. Vans skill with his knife came at a jamboree. Our little troop went to an east coast gathering of scouts down in Virginia, and it was a glorious time of outdoors games, competitions, hikes, night bonfires and cookouts. In addition to camp craft competitions by the scouts, the scout masters also took part. One afternoon there came the contest to make the perfect fuzz stick. Now in those days the fuzz stick was considered by the official boy scout manual to be a very important thing to be able to do well. Not only was it a judge of your carving, but it was good to get a fire going. Mr. Van and some of the other troops scoutmasters sat down one afternoon in the big tent by the headquaters and went to it.
We watched with baited breath to see which knife he would use. With slow deliberateness he unclipped the Remington scout knife from his belt and then took off his leather baskett weave belt with the silver ranger buckle. Laying the belt inside up, he slowly stropped his scout knife before he started. All the scout masters had an equal size piece of dry wood. They set to work.
Going slowly they all started getting thin little curls of wood. We watched Mr. Van with rapt attention. He worked slowly, using a slow pushcut to curl the wood. He always told us that a good curl should be thin enough to read a newspaper through. One by one the other soutmasters finished. It was inevitable that some curls would break off durring the chore. Most of the ones who finished had small wood chips that they brushed from thier laps when they stood, but so far Mr. Van only had two little chips fall. Finally Mr. Van was the only one left still carving. In the hot summer heat, most everyone once in a while mopped thier brow with a bandana. Not Mr. Van. He looked as cool and relaxed as if he were back at the church basement. He seemed it ignore everything exept the stick of wood in his left hand.
Finally he stood up and just those two little chips fell from his lap, and he walked straitbacked to the judges table and laid his fuzz stick in front of them. It was so perfect, it may well have been a picture from our official boy scout handbook. Each curl was translucent, and so long there were as many as three or four layers in it, like a clock spring. Mr. Van had only had those two curls fall of and he was the hands down winner. It was the perfect example of the official fuzz stick.
Slowly he wiped off the dark grey blade of the Remington, and hung it back on his belt. I think it was at the east coast jamboree that Mr.Van became a demi-god to troop 469.
But true deity status would come later with his shooting exibition using his little .22 BSA Martini.
