Mr. Van was a stickler for all things being shined, sharpened, and well maintained. This was so with all of our scout gear, but most of all, with our scout knives. Since Mr. Van was kind of a knife knut, he paid very special attention to the state of our most valued item, ourscout knives that dangled off our belts on our official scout belt hooks.
It was not unusual for us to stand for an inpection at the start of the Friday night meeting. This one meeting in particular, Everett Snyder was in a worried state. No, that's not exactly true, it was more of a panic. He'd lost his scout knife.
"Whataya mean ya lost it?" I asked him.
"I don't know, it was there in my pocket this afternoon, and when I went to get into uniform, it was gone!" he exclaimed in a semi-hysterical voice.
I could understand his fear, it was two minutes to seven and Mr. Van was one of those people who you could set your watch by. We knew at any moment, we'd hear that measured step as he marched down the hall outside. And odds were, like most times, maybe 9 out of 10 times, he'd have a scout knife inspection. And there would be Ev, with no knife. Some of the scouts, hearing his plight, edged a bit away from him. No sense being too close to the condemmed man kind of thing. Now we were not sure what was going to happen, as this was new undiscovered country. No scout had ever lost his scout knife in Mr. Van's troop before, but we were all sure it had been nice knowing Ev. We let him know this as we edged a bit away from him.
Then, at exactly 15 seconds to the hour, we could hear the bootsteps. Mr. Van didn't walk anywhere. He had that straitback marine walk. He marched where he went. Then the hour was at hand. We fell in and he called the meeting to order. Then came the crack of doom. He called knife inspection. We all stood at attention, holding our scout knives in our right hands, ready for Mr. Van's eagle eye. All exept Ev that was. Mr. Van worked his way down the green clad line, and even Bobby Ryerson was ready with a sharp and clean scout knife.
"Good man, Mr. Ryerson. You're getting there!" said Mr, Van.
Then he was standing in front of Ev. We held our collective breaths, and I felt a small trickle of sweat run down my back, in sympathy for whatever fate was about to fall on our fellow scout.
Mr. Van looked over Ev and his empty hand carefully.
"Mr. Snyder, where is your knife?" asked Mr. Van in quiet tone.
"Uh, well...I...don't have it on me sir." stammered Ev.
Quiet settled on the meeting room. A quiet like all of eternity was holding it's breath. If a pin had had dropped, it would have been an ear shattering crash. Ev squirmed uncomforatable under the pale blue laser stare that was a bad thing to experiance. I felt another small bead of sweat roll down my back. I'd liked Ev, really I did. Good friends were hard to find and I would miss him.
Much to our surprise, the crack of doom did not sound, nor did any black hooded figure with a beheading ax appear. Instead. Mr. van questioned Ev in a slow deliberate way.
"Just where is your knife, Mr. Snyder"
"Uh, I don't know sir. I had it this afternoon when I was doing chores. I cut some string with it."
And just where was that, Mr. Snyder?" asked Mr. Van.
Ev went on to explain that he'd been raking leaves in the big backyard that connected to the other back yards on his black, making one big long yard that the kids used as a common ball park, hangout, slingshot range, and whatever. It was not uncommon for all the kids on the block to get together to rake all the leaves up in the fall. It made for a shorter task with a half dozen kids with rakes taking it in lanes to clear up the fall leaves. Of course it was inevitable when we had a large montain of leaves, to take a jump off old man Wachters shed roof and land in a huge 10 foot pile of leaves.
Under Mr. Van's steady questioning, Ev recalled that he did take a few leaps off the shed roof. This was what Mr. Van was fishing for.
"Well then Mr. Snyder, if we rule out the impossable, can we make a guess that whatever is left is probable? And that maybe you lost the knife in the leaves?
Ev thought for a moment. Then brighted with a smile.
"Yes sir, it may be there" he said. Then he lost the smile. "But if it is, then it's going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack. It's a huge mountain of leaves, it'll be impossable to find it!"
"Nothing is imposable untill it's tried and proven, Mr. Snyder." Said Mr. Van. "This will be our project for tomorrow, scouts. We are going to find a needle in a haystack. We are going to recover Mr. Snyder's scout knife by using teamwork and tactical planning."
One thing about Mr. Van, he never passed up an opportunity to get a lesson in something in on us.
True to his word, the next morning Mr. Van had us all out in the block long connected back yard. In the middle of it was a huge mountain of leaves. It looked impossable. I've never been to Nepal, nor had seen Mt. Everrest, but to us 12 year old scouts, the leaf mountain seemed as imposing. But Mr. Van had a plan. His instrctions were clear.
He had us take our scout knives, we that had them of course, and cut some stakes to stick in the ground. Then he ran string from a stake at the base of the leaf mountain to stakes far out in the yard. This made a series of string marked lanes radiating out from the leaf mountain like slices of pie. Mr. Van callled these our operational lanes of fire.
"Now, you all will take a bushell basket and fill it and take it to your lane and empty it. You will then feel and examine those leaves for a scout knife. Look very carefully, feel them. If there's nothing there, then get another basket of leaves and do it again." he told us.
It's surprising how many bushel baskets of leaves can be examined by a bunch of scouts under the right leadership. Slowly, the mountain of leaves grew smaller. An hour went by. Then two. Suddenly Billy Yates yelled out. In his hand was a dirty leaf particle covered lump with a bail sticking out of it. He had found Ev's knife. Ev took it and wiped it on the leg of his pants and the "Be Prepared" motto of the Camillus scout knife was clear to see. Ev opened the blade and it was still clean and shiney and sharp. He handed it to Mr. Van for his inspection. There were a few spots from moisture over night, but Mr. Van nodded.
"Better late than never, Mr. Snyder. Now I suggest using the bail for what it was intended for so as to not repeat this incident."
"Yes sir!" said Ev with a smile. He had his knife back, and all was right with the world again.
Ev was grateful to have his knife back, and Billy was a hero for the time. Mr Van addressed us.
"Now you men can see how a small group can do what seems to be impossable, if you work together. Teamwork and some careful planning can work wonders. As you go through life, be careful to have a small group of friends that you can count on. Nieghbors, co-workers, it doesn't matter. As long as you have people you can count on to stand by you, and work as a team with you, you can do great things. But draw the line between acquintances and friends. A friend is somebody to go up the beach with."
We took in Mr. Van's words of wisdom, and filed them away. Under his leadership we'd leaned the value of careful planning and how a difficult task is made possable. It took us only 10 minutes to rake up the leaves again into the big pile, with everyone raking his lane of fire. Afterward, Ev fondled his knife, vowing to get a lanyard on the bail.
It's been a lifetime since that morning, but Mr. Van's lessons were never forgotten. It's surprising how many aquaintances you get in life, but somehow I've found that where ever I went, really true friends were much rarer. People that , as Mr. van said, you'd go up a beach with.
Everytime I look at an old camillus scout knife, I can hear one of his lessons.
It was not unusual for us to stand for an inpection at the start of the Friday night meeting. This one meeting in particular, Everett Snyder was in a worried state. No, that's not exactly true, it was more of a panic. He'd lost his scout knife.
"Whataya mean ya lost it?" I asked him.
"I don't know, it was there in my pocket this afternoon, and when I went to get into uniform, it was gone!" he exclaimed in a semi-hysterical voice.
I could understand his fear, it was two minutes to seven and Mr. Van was one of those people who you could set your watch by. We knew at any moment, we'd hear that measured step as he marched down the hall outside. And odds were, like most times, maybe 9 out of 10 times, he'd have a scout knife inspection. And there would be Ev, with no knife. Some of the scouts, hearing his plight, edged a bit away from him. No sense being too close to the condemmed man kind of thing. Now we were not sure what was going to happen, as this was new undiscovered country. No scout had ever lost his scout knife in Mr. Van's troop before, but we were all sure it had been nice knowing Ev. We let him know this as we edged a bit away from him.
Then, at exactly 15 seconds to the hour, we could hear the bootsteps. Mr. Van didn't walk anywhere. He had that straitback marine walk. He marched where he went. Then the hour was at hand. We fell in and he called the meeting to order. Then came the crack of doom. He called knife inspection. We all stood at attention, holding our scout knives in our right hands, ready for Mr. Van's eagle eye. All exept Ev that was. Mr. Van worked his way down the green clad line, and even Bobby Ryerson was ready with a sharp and clean scout knife.
"Good man, Mr. Ryerson. You're getting there!" said Mr, Van.
Then he was standing in front of Ev. We held our collective breaths, and I felt a small trickle of sweat run down my back, in sympathy for whatever fate was about to fall on our fellow scout.
Mr. Van looked over Ev and his empty hand carefully.
"Mr. Snyder, where is your knife?" asked Mr. Van in quiet tone.
"Uh, well...I...don't have it on me sir." stammered Ev.
Quiet settled on the meeting room. A quiet like all of eternity was holding it's breath. If a pin had had dropped, it would have been an ear shattering crash. Ev squirmed uncomforatable under the pale blue laser stare that was a bad thing to experiance. I felt another small bead of sweat roll down my back. I'd liked Ev, really I did. Good friends were hard to find and I would miss him.
Much to our surprise, the crack of doom did not sound, nor did any black hooded figure with a beheading ax appear. Instead. Mr. van questioned Ev in a slow deliberate way.
"Just where is your knife, Mr. Snyder"
"Uh, I don't know sir. I had it this afternoon when I was doing chores. I cut some string with it."
And just where was that, Mr. Snyder?" asked Mr. Van.
Ev went on to explain that he'd been raking leaves in the big backyard that connected to the other back yards on his black, making one big long yard that the kids used as a common ball park, hangout, slingshot range, and whatever. It was not uncommon for all the kids on the block to get together to rake all the leaves up in the fall. It made for a shorter task with a half dozen kids with rakes taking it in lanes to clear up the fall leaves. Of course it was inevitable when we had a large montain of leaves, to take a jump off old man Wachters shed roof and land in a huge 10 foot pile of leaves.
Under Mr. Van's steady questioning, Ev recalled that he did take a few leaps off the shed roof. This was what Mr. Van was fishing for.
"Well then Mr. Snyder, if we rule out the impossable, can we make a guess that whatever is left is probable? And that maybe you lost the knife in the leaves?
Ev thought for a moment. Then brighted with a smile.
"Yes sir, it may be there" he said. Then he lost the smile. "But if it is, then it's going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack. It's a huge mountain of leaves, it'll be impossable to find it!"
"Nothing is imposable untill it's tried and proven, Mr. Snyder." Said Mr. Van. "This will be our project for tomorrow, scouts. We are going to find a needle in a haystack. We are going to recover Mr. Snyder's scout knife by using teamwork and tactical planning."
One thing about Mr. Van, he never passed up an opportunity to get a lesson in something in on us.
True to his word, the next morning Mr. Van had us all out in the block long connected back yard. In the middle of it was a huge mountain of leaves. It looked impossable. I've never been to Nepal, nor had seen Mt. Everrest, but to us 12 year old scouts, the leaf mountain seemed as imposing. But Mr. Van had a plan. His instrctions were clear.
He had us take our scout knives, we that had them of course, and cut some stakes to stick in the ground. Then he ran string from a stake at the base of the leaf mountain to stakes far out in the yard. This made a series of string marked lanes radiating out from the leaf mountain like slices of pie. Mr. Van callled these our operational lanes of fire.
"Now, you all will take a bushell basket and fill it and take it to your lane and empty it. You will then feel and examine those leaves for a scout knife. Look very carefully, feel them. If there's nothing there, then get another basket of leaves and do it again." he told us.
It's surprising how many bushel baskets of leaves can be examined by a bunch of scouts under the right leadership. Slowly, the mountain of leaves grew smaller. An hour went by. Then two. Suddenly Billy Yates yelled out. In his hand was a dirty leaf particle covered lump with a bail sticking out of it. He had found Ev's knife. Ev took it and wiped it on the leg of his pants and the "Be Prepared" motto of the Camillus scout knife was clear to see. Ev opened the blade and it was still clean and shiney and sharp. He handed it to Mr. Van for his inspection. There were a few spots from moisture over night, but Mr. Van nodded.
"Better late than never, Mr. Snyder. Now I suggest using the bail for what it was intended for so as to not repeat this incident."
"Yes sir!" said Ev with a smile. He had his knife back, and all was right with the world again.
Ev was grateful to have his knife back, and Billy was a hero for the time. Mr Van addressed us.
"Now you men can see how a small group can do what seems to be impossable, if you work together. Teamwork and some careful planning can work wonders. As you go through life, be careful to have a small group of friends that you can count on. Nieghbors, co-workers, it doesn't matter. As long as you have people you can count on to stand by you, and work as a team with you, you can do great things. But draw the line between acquintances and friends. A friend is somebody to go up the beach with."
We took in Mr. Van's words of wisdom, and filed them away. Under his leadership we'd leaned the value of careful planning and how a difficult task is made possable. It took us only 10 minutes to rake up the leaves again into the big pile, with everyone raking his lane of fire. Afterward, Ev fondled his knife, vowing to get a lanyard on the bail.
It's been a lifetime since that morning, but Mr. Van's lessons were never forgotten. It's surprising how many aquaintances you get in life, but somehow I've found that where ever I went, really true friends were much rarer. People that , as Mr. van said, you'd go up a beach with.
Everytime I look at an old camillus scout knife, I can hear one of his lessons.
