We had our next to last Cub Scout meeting tonight. Nick will be joining Boy Scouts in just two weeks. January is always on our Cub Scout schedule as the meeting to run the Pinewood Derby. Most kids at this meeting like racing their cars, but then get bored when their car is done. Mike and I have always advocated for alternate activities, but the other leaders don't want any extra work. They're up there, with the cars, watching like little kids and they don't see what happens when a boy is done racing. Since there isn't much else to do, the kids run up and down the bleachers, and work to tear up the padding on the gym's climbing wall. One year, a kid leaping across the bleacher benches fell and had to get stitches. Mike sets up a course for the kids to race R/C cars. It usually results in sort of a Battlebots situation with the cars crashing against each other but at least they're not destroying anything or each other. One year a tussle ended up with a kid's foot on another kid's neck. Up to now, I'd been one of the only adults that would approach the boys to stop this kind of behavior. The older of these kids see me as just a mom and work to stay as far as possible from me. This year, I let go of the responsibility of trying to reign in the kids leaping the bleachers and sticking coat hangers into the padding covering the climbing wall, so I took the puppy for a short walk in the middle of the meeting and came back just in time to help clean up, load up, and head home.
More than once, I've been wearing some Cub Scout Tshirt or other in the grocery store and been approached by a teenaged boy or a young man in his twenties. That just doesn't happen in the normal course of a day for me. These guys go on about how much fun they had racing their Derby car or what they did at the camp whose shirt I am wearing. I like that something as simple as a wooden block carved into the shape of a car can open that strange gate that stops a teenager from talking to a fifty-one year old woman. Our culture has created this barrier. I admit that I'm old enough that I remember a time when kids didn't feel that it was a requirement to ignore most adults. I really hate that barrier. I guess it's the embarrassement I feel when I say hi to a kid I know from Nick's school and they walk by without so much as a nod. Eye contact would be enough.
It doesn't have to be this way. Before Nick was born, Mike and I went up to Alaska with a friend to do some canoeing. Just South of Anchorage, we stopped for gas on our way down to the Kenai Penninsula where we were going to put in for a five day trip. I was hanging around the rental car gasing up when a big kid sauntered over. It made me a little uncomfortable.
"Hi!" he said.
"Hi," I said tentatively. I ventured a bit of a smile, you know what kind of smile I'm talking about, the one that isn't all that friendly.
"How are you?"
"Uh, I'm fine," I said. I started looking around for Mike when the kid sat down on an overturned five gallon bucket. He wasn't getting any closer and his face had kind of an open look to it.
"Where are you headed," he asked. I started to relax a little. Mike had left the convenience store carrying a couple of those bear-sized pepper spray canisters and walked toward us.
"We're going to do some canoeing down in Kenai," I said, warming up to this curious boy.
"Well, it's going to be good weather for it," he said. He went on to talk about people he knew down in Kenai as if we might run into them. He talked about the brown bears when I asked him some questions. He told us that some bears, the ones with experience with it, will back off when they even see those big cans of pepper spray being held up. He talked about the weather some more and grinned big as if he'd like nothing more than to tag along on our trip. By the time we'd filled the tank and bought some road snacks, I liked this friendly, curious boy. I was struck by how this would never have happened back home in the lower forty-eight. He waved enthusiastically as we drove away and yelled for us to have a good trip. Well, in my book, it was already a good trip. I like talking to people. It's always part of my adventure, especially when I'm in a different culture. I hadn't even realized that Alaska would have a culture so different that what I knew. Across the U.S., there is definitely a difference in culture as you move from one region to another, but it's subtle most of the time so that you have to live in a place to feel it. It isn't so subtle a difference in Alaska. Kids there will talk to an adult.
Years ago, when Mike and I lived in New Jersey, he was a Scout leader for an Explorer Post. When we started dating, I joined too. It was fun. I got to go canoeing, climbing, caving, and whitewater rafting. One of the coolest parts was just hanging out with these kids. I let the guys do the leader stuff, only speaking up when I though someone was going to get hurt. We had an amazing time and I could see into a different generation than my own. Sometimes, because I drove a Blazer, I was loaded with gear and only had room for one passenger. It was always interesting. At first, the kid assigned to ride with me would climb into the truck and look at me as though I might bite. Then, I'd ask him to pick out some music from a box of tapes that I carried. There was one Led Zeppelin tape in it and that was almost always what he chose. We'd sit in that truck with the music turned up high for a bit and it didn't take long for him to turn down the music and start talking, as if Led Zeppelin was the secret password to the club.
These days, after getting the cold shoulder from teenagers for so many years, I'm getting a different kind of treatment from some of the boys I know just a bit in our the small town. Mike will become the Scout Leader for the local troop in about six months. Word has spread and I've gone from a person to ignore to being someone to get to know. Interesting. Since I like to talk to all kinds of people, I think I'm going to like having this small glimpse into the lives of a population that, until now, has been completely closed off from me. I may have to dig up some Led Zeppelin music, except that, most likely, the password has been changed.
Thank you for listening, jb
More than once, I've been wearing some Cub Scout Tshirt or other in the grocery store and been approached by a teenaged boy or a young man in his twenties. That just doesn't happen in the normal course of a day for me. These guys go on about how much fun they had racing their Derby car or what they did at the camp whose shirt I am wearing. I like that something as simple as a wooden block carved into the shape of a car can open that strange gate that stops a teenager from talking to a fifty-one year old woman. Our culture has created this barrier. I admit that I'm old enough that I remember a time when kids didn't feel that it was a requirement to ignore most adults. I really hate that barrier. I guess it's the embarrassement I feel when I say hi to a kid I know from Nick's school and they walk by without so much as a nod. Eye contact would be enough.
It doesn't have to be this way. Before Nick was born, Mike and I went up to Alaska with a friend to do some canoeing. Just South of Anchorage, we stopped for gas on our way down to the Kenai Penninsula where we were going to put in for a five day trip. I was hanging around the rental car gasing up when a big kid sauntered over. It made me a little uncomfortable.
"Hi!" he said.
"Hi," I said tentatively. I ventured a bit of a smile, you know what kind of smile I'm talking about, the one that isn't all that friendly.
"How are you?"
"Uh, I'm fine," I said. I started looking around for Mike when the kid sat down on an overturned five gallon bucket. He wasn't getting any closer and his face had kind of an open look to it.
"Where are you headed," he asked. I started to relax a little. Mike had left the convenience store carrying a couple of those bear-sized pepper spray canisters and walked toward us.
"We're going to do some canoeing down in Kenai," I said, warming up to this curious boy.
"Well, it's going to be good weather for it," he said. He went on to talk about people he knew down in Kenai as if we might run into them. He talked about the brown bears when I asked him some questions. He told us that some bears, the ones with experience with it, will back off when they even see those big cans of pepper spray being held up. He talked about the weather some more and grinned big as if he'd like nothing more than to tag along on our trip. By the time we'd filled the tank and bought some road snacks, I liked this friendly, curious boy. I was struck by how this would never have happened back home in the lower forty-eight. He waved enthusiastically as we drove away and yelled for us to have a good trip. Well, in my book, it was already a good trip. I like talking to people. It's always part of my adventure, especially when I'm in a different culture. I hadn't even realized that Alaska would have a culture so different that what I knew. Across the U.S., there is definitely a difference in culture as you move from one region to another, but it's subtle most of the time so that you have to live in a place to feel it. It isn't so subtle a difference in Alaska. Kids there will talk to an adult.
Years ago, when Mike and I lived in New Jersey, he was a Scout leader for an Explorer Post. When we started dating, I joined too. It was fun. I got to go canoeing, climbing, caving, and whitewater rafting. One of the coolest parts was just hanging out with these kids. I let the guys do the leader stuff, only speaking up when I though someone was going to get hurt. We had an amazing time and I could see into a different generation than my own. Sometimes, because I drove a Blazer, I was loaded with gear and only had room for one passenger. It was always interesting. At first, the kid assigned to ride with me would climb into the truck and look at me as though I might bite. Then, I'd ask him to pick out some music from a box of tapes that I carried. There was one Led Zeppelin tape in it and that was almost always what he chose. We'd sit in that truck with the music turned up high for a bit and it didn't take long for him to turn down the music and start talking, as if Led Zeppelin was the secret password to the club.
These days, after getting the cold shoulder from teenagers for so many years, I'm getting a different kind of treatment from some of the boys I know just a bit in our the small town. Mike will become the Scout Leader for the local troop in about six months. Word has spread and I've gone from a person to ignore to being someone to get to know. Interesting. Since I like to talk to all kinds of people, I think I'm going to like having this small glimpse into the lives of a population that, until now, has been completely closed off from me. I may have to dig up some Led Zeppelin music, except that, most likely, the password has been changed.
Thank you for listening, jb
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