I was in the Boy Scouts for several years and really enjoyed it. I got all the merit badges up to the one for swimming and that was when I quit the Scouts. I found that the friends you make in Scouting are sometimes your friends all your life . . . ones like Ray Smith and Skip Dewey. We had a lot of good times at Camp Woodcraft near Cheshire, New York. One of our favorite games there was "Capture the Flag". The lane through Camp Woodcraft was the line between sides and the flag was on a pole way back in the woods. Some would guard the flag while others would circle around, try to get the other side's flag, and return across the center line with it. If you were touched by anyone on the other side, you were out of the game. It is similar to the game they play now with those dye guns. I was in the Beaver Patrol and can remember the meals that we used to cook. Some patrols did fancy things, but we always ended up with Campbells soup. We were known as the "Soup Patrol".
Every year we used to plant pine trees at Camp Woodcraft. It would take all day and we carried the seedlings around in a pail. When noon came, we would wash the pail out in the creek and heat our soup in it. There was a small cabin with a dirt floor, loft and an old cook stove. One time Ray Smith and I went up to stay overnight and it was cold. We were quite young at the time and got scared as it grew dark so we tried to sleep in the loft. We had a wood fire going in the old stove to keep warm and it made so much smoke that we coughed all night and didn't sleep much. We were still too scared to come down from the loft. L. Ray Stokie was our Scoutmaster and he ran a chocolate shop on Main Street. We would go down to the store and he would let us go down in the basement to watch him make chocolates and pull taffy.
Most of my possessions during these years were bought for me by my brother Clarence. My most prized possession was a pair of leather high top boots with a pouch on the side for a jack knife. He also bought me a hatchet, which I still have today. It is the only one I've ever owned and it must be sixty years old. It is getting dull, but it's never been sharpened. He also bought me my first bicycle and it took me forever to learn to ride it. I don't know how many years I had it, but it was my only bike. My mother and father had little money in those days, especially during the Depression in 1929 and 1930, so if I had anything at all it was bought for me by my older brothers.