How do YOU spell "chicken"? Kind of a Scouting thread...

[Henrietta23]

Just back from Scout training and I'm flashing back to GS camp. Here's how we spelled chicken (From a song called something like Rufus Rastus Johnson Brown)

C- that's the way we begin
H- I'm the second letter in
I- I am the third
and C- I'm the fourth letter in that bird
oh K- I'm filling in
E- I'm near the end
oh CHICKEN- that is the way you spell chicken!

There are different versions but that's the way I remember singing it 110 years ago when I could sleep on the ground and actually sleep!

 

[Lady Henevere]

Ha! I remember that song from girl scouts. We used to do the sign language letters with it.

 

[Henrietta23]

Cool! Do you know the Boy Scout trainers I was with did not know the words to Taps? We sang it all the time in Girl Scouts. The one other female leader there with me knew the words too! We also set them straight when someone called lighter fluid "Girl Scout juice". Neither of our troops had ever used lighter fluid to start a camp fire. We used a match. "A" match. One. It was actually one particular guy who made a few anti-Girl Scout comments and when Jen and I went and got 10 gallons of water up the hill by ours selves he shut up. (Insert chest thumping smiley here).

Do you remember the song about the spider web? That one was always my favorite.

 

[valmom]

LOL! I was a girl scout through cadets, and I was a den mother for my son in cubs and was girl scout co-leader from brownies up through juniors. I liked the girls much much better! Maybe it was because I only saw the cub scouts (they kick the moms out after that for whatever reason, and being from a single parent my son felt funny in boy scouts), but the boys were all more interested in the snacks and the running around activities- and were all but impossible on field trips! We took the cubs once to the local power company. The only things they enjoyed were the snacks and the ride up in the cherry picker bucket! The girls always seemed more interested in what the field trip was about.

Oh, OT, but a funny camping story from when my daughter was a Brownie. I couldn't go because I couldn't leave my son at home, and it was when my daughter was deciding she didn't want to eat meat because cows and chickens and pigs were cute. (she couldn't eat Wilbur! Charlotte's Web was our downfall). So we planned around her not eating meat. My co-leader told me, until breakfast where there was bacon. She offered to eat anyone's bacon who didn't want it- and ended up eating a LOT of bacon!

 

[Henrietta23]

They don't kick the moms out anymore and quite a few are leaders up into the Boy Scout level. I think it sometimes happens in individual Troops but it isn't supposed to. I know it does when I ran into someone in the local Boy Scout troop at an event. When he saw that I was a Den leader he commented to me and DH that once our son crossed over to the BS, DH would take over the leader duties, now that I had done my part as a den mother. We are not den mothers anymore!!! But the old school guys don't always seem to accept that. I just laughted at him and said don't count on it!

 

[SKR8PN]

I spell chicken......

P'Eggy Sue.

A boy and his chicken.

 

[valmom]

Great picture!

Well, I feel a bit better about the boy scouts, I suppose, now that they don't cut off the moms entirely once the boys are old enough to actually do interesting things!

 

[Henrietta23]

Great picture!

Well, I feel a bit better about the boy scouts, I suppose, now that they don't cut off the moms entirely once the boys are old enough to actually do interesting things!

Not at all! There all kinds of interesting opportunities for us! I know a number of women higher up in our district who have taught training courses. Their sons have made Eagle, or grown up and the women are still involved! I also wish I hadn't been in an area where it became uncool to be a GS or I would have continued past 9th grade.

Cute bird! She could become a Venturer Scout! Or a Sea Scout... does she swim? That might be better for ducks and geese....

 

[savingdogs]

I was a girl scout, my mom was a leader, I was a leader and my daughter plans on being one for her little girl. It is a family tradition for us. We especially enjoyed the songs and my specialty (I had a co-leader) was learning and leading the girls in the songs and games.

We tried the boy scouts for my older son and were extremely disapointed. It was all centered around their BOOK and earning merit awards and the boys hated the activities in the book. The boys wanted to camp and do outdoor activities and everything was about father-son bonding which was awkward as all the boys had MOMs who were involved but dads who needed to be coaxed. The program really was poorly run in our area and I never did enter my younger son in the scouting program despite it being a family tradition, simply because it was such an unfulfilling and annoying thing for my older son, who didn't even like it himself after awhile, but since his mom was committed to den mother duties, we ended up grudgingly "leading" it for three years before he refused to continue anymore. I could have done a better job as a cub scout leader had I not had to use the darn book they provided and just taken them out to the lake on nature hikes and such. And the boys were never encouraged to sing and I always wondered why not, boys love music and have wonderful singing voices.

I don't remember the song you are referencing but I know a lot of girl scout songs.

 

[Henrietta23]

My son is in his third year and we're on our second Pack. They are all run differently, that's for sure. The first was chaotic and disorganized. This one is very organized. The way the program is set up now (new this year) it is very geared towards their books but our leaders do a good job of having special activities to keep them interested. We have a number of hikes, the older boys camp several times during the year. They are always telling us kids will stick with scouting if they go to camp. Camp was my favorite part of GS! Makes sense to me. Today we held a raingutter regatta. The boys put together simple boats with sails that they had to blow down a pvc pipe cut in half and filled with water. It was pretty low key but they had a lot of fun. There were two boys in tears when they didn't win their races. But we did see lots of good sportsmanship too. Then they made banana boat sundaes. We canceled our last hike because of a thunderstorm but it will be rescheduled. We're going down near the shore. Should be awesome. There's district wide fishing derby up at the Scout reservation next month, our pack family campout next month too. Then July and August bring Scout camp. I've got three more den meetings this year. But baseball season to deal with.