Anyone who has read this blog knows one of three reasons why this blog exists and as part of that I am putting together a uniform an amalgam of past and present as authentic as it gets for this Wolf Cub in spirit.
This is a genuine contemporary neckerchief from an official supplier for me to learn to fold properly and fasten
Purists and traditionalists may well prefer leather woggles which aesthetically they may have a point with but contemporary cubs from which Wolf Cubs were replaced by do use plastic ones today.
I may well get a leather one at some point but I don't like the angular Cubs written in bold designs like what's so wrong with having an actual logo a wolf cub perhaps and "cubs" underneath it?
The main thing me is to work on my dexterity so I can wear it correctly with given my conditions is itself a challenge.
Different packs had and have different attitudes to things like socks so I'm sticking with the old school grey school shorts and school socks that with the green top do look smart.
That for now wraps it up until next time
Today marks the one hundreth post on this Blogger form of my Tumblr that in a number of ways is more the full expression of what can be summed up in its very title, Scouting and Me.
It goes back to December of last year with finding I was blogging a number of images and accompanying text concerning Scouting in its differing forms I began to realize it really needed a spot of its own focused just on that.
A lot of it is to do with the role of Scouting in my childhood which was a running sore in my life as a disabled boy who saw his brothers going off to Cubs or Scouts as with my older one, coming back with tales, even sometimes helping them out with things to do with it but inexplicably and with no fault at all to the Scouting Association at the time, my parents never ever considered approaching the local Scouts and getting me in even though amazingly enough when you look at the information that was available from them, they were very inclusive at the time and certainly would of had me.
While I did in other forms get some opportunities to do some activities that cubs and scouts would of done together nontheless it wasn't the same because actually I wanted to live to the same principals and that Cub Promise they had made and as I got older I began to see the difference it had made to others.
When as with certain aspects of my disabilities became more obvious in a good number of ways I still was very much the same boy, the odd more grown up interest aside I began to explore more the notion of what it was I liked about that point and from that did dress more younger.
It was little accident that upon finding folded up neatly my brothers cub scout uniform that I did begin to wear parts of it aided by being short and relatively thinly built, seeing myself as that Cub who could of been right down to the green garters while also wearing the shorts I'd been abruptly taken out of as started to get toward being fourteen.
To me had I of gone to see an Akela or Skip around that time I feel that they would not of encouraged me to go on moping or carry on with a regret for it but rather to explore and live in the spirit of that Cub doing things in more age appropriate roles that still tied to it so while I would not of had the experiences I so long for, I'd of experienced the feelings of learning to explore and grow up in in my limited capacities.
As the years have gone by I have accepted my child-like nature that comes from having developmental disabilities that leave me more as a child and through that become a Wolf Cub in spirit exploring his environment, finding out about his community learning to be a asset to it and being the very best most independent boy I can
That takes me on in this special post to the third thing about this blog which is to say that it is apologetically in favour of Scouting For Boys, supporting Scouting for today's boys (and girls) for the benefits, values and skills it brings to them that cannot be found in sometimes more superficially attractive commercial activities.
Thus it's not just a nostalgia for a past that scouting had a place in or just the alignment with the spirit of that as a kind of relearning through age regression of the skills and building of missed experiences but the endorsement of a system of helping to raise a healthy, active and responsible community starting from children upward to the next generation so they are well prepared to take on adulthood.
That is what this blog is about so while it may not be the most prolific in terms of posts made, I feel it has a great value.
Carrying out a repair in the field is a most useful skill to learn where you may not be able to replace an item apart from helping to keep things lasting longer so what looks to me like darning while travelling on the bus is a sensible thing to do.
