I still remember my first day as a scout. The night before, I had completed my Arrow of Light as a Webelos Cub Scout. Our den leader walked me next door to the scout meeting, which was in progress. The second year Webelos and the Boy Scout troop both meet on Monday evenings at the Edison Park Lutheran Church. That night I became a Scout in Troop 955. At that time, the Arrow of Light award requirements mirrored half of the Boy Scout Tenderfoot requirements, so I was already half way to Tenderfoot on my first day.
The Scoutmaster, Mr. Weikart, welcomed me into the troop. It was spring break and as there was no school that week, several scouts were going on a day hike the next day and I was invited along.
They had planned a five-mile hike to Caldwell Woods forest preserve, which is operated by the Cook County Forest Preserve District. It’s also the home of Jensen Slides, a pair of wooden toboggan slides build by a Scandinavian emigrant named Jenson. The trip also called for building a campfire and cooking lunch over the fire. This means I would be working on three requirements one my very first day!
Jeff Weikart was the troop’s Senior Patrol Leader and was leading the hike. I remember that his brother, Greg, was also on the hike. Greg was my age and had been a fellow Webelos. I can’t recall the other scouts on that hike, but there were only five or six of us.
The hike was pretty straightforward. We headed from the church to Devon Avenue and then followed Devon all the way to Caldwell Woods. It was all done within the city and was sidewalks all the way.
Jeff taught me how to construct a lean to type fire from twigs and kindling. And I was able to start my own fire with my first of the two allowed matches. I cooked my lunch of scrambled eggs in my little personal mess kit frying pan. I remember I had pre-scrambled the eggs and carried them in a blue plastic Tupperware type of container.
After we cleaned up and put out the fires, we hiked around the forest preserve a while before heading home. It was certainly a great way to start out as a Boy Scout.