The Joy of Cub Scouts: Random Crafts

A previous post was supposed to tell about the fun crafts we made as cub scouts but it wound up being solely about the Pinewood Derby. While it was fun reminiscing about the derby, and perhaps exaggerating a bit (though not much), the Pinewood Derby was only once a year. My two years in Cub Scouts were filled with other fun things.

With November being about Thanksgiving, we made a turkey from old Reader’s Digest magazines. I looked all over the web and could not find an image of the turkey, but I remember carefully folding each page of the magazine, opening it up and stapling the front cover to the back, and then gluing the turkey head, feet, and tail feathers to the base.

For Christmas, our Den Mother gave use each a round piece of foam and some pre-cut felt pieces to create a snowman’s face. As with the turkey, I was so proud of my skills that I carefully took my masterpieces home to show Mom.

Mom was great a making me feel that I was the foremost artist in the world. She placed the Reader’s Digest turkey on the mantel of the fireplace in the family room. But the snowman’s face was strategically placed at a high-valued location on the inside of the front door. That meant each time someone left out house they would see my snowman’s face.

In the Bear Den we were introduced to the pocket knife. There are two things little boys are drawn to regardless of their culture or socio-economic status – knives and fire. Fire would come in the Guide Patrol. But knives became a critical part of being a Bear.

The problem was that nine year-olds with knives can be a tragedy. We will learn that on our first Guide Patrol outdoor outing. But our Den Mother was wise. Before we could us our knives, we had to learn about knife safety, such as how to open and close a pocket knife, how to sharpen it, and how not to poke or cut each other. But what we really wanted to do was use the knife. That is where a bar of soap came in.

At the end of one den meeting, Sister Howard reminded us that next week we needed to bring our pocket knife and a bar of soap. We were confused. Were we going to learn how to clean a pocket knife? That was the last thing we wanted to do. We all wanted to cut something. Besides, that is what a knife is for, right?

So, I took my brand new, only been opened once pocket knife, and a yellow bar of Dial soap to den meeting the next week. When we all arrived, Sister Howard showed us how to carve a bar of soap with our pocket knives. This was going to be so cool. I had an image of exactly want I wanted to carve.

Well, it didn’t quite turn out as I desired, rather, it wound up looking more like one of the cows in this picture.

Still it was so cool carving with my real Cub Scout pocket knife. I was a real man now. Well, almost. I still had never started a fire. That would come in two years.