Scouting

Scouting is about finding a site for the family to land.

Scouting involves lots of fun activites like map reading, researching the types of plants and animals living in various places, interfacing with forest rangers and driving around the country in old cars with people who will soon be your best friends. We always need more people to help with the scouting effort. If you're not able to run around the countryside, perhaps you can host a few dirty but loveable scouts when they're in your neck of the woods. It's always great for people involved in scouting to have a hot shower, hook up with local family, get some help with car repairs, or a good home cooked meal. There's always research to be done that is easier to accomplish from a house than a tent in the woods.

If you've got a few $$ to kick in for gas money for others to run around the countryside, that's always a huge help. If you want to plug in, but don't know how, just volunteer. Scouting is a huge effort and the more we spread the work around, the better off the gathering will be.

The first Scout Rendezvous will be April 1, 2010 at a location TBD. If you're in the area being scouted (New Hampshire, Vermont, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina or Kentucky) and can plug in at any level, please call the following lightline: 908-I-Gather (442-8437). If no one answers, leave a call back number. Calls are often returned collect, so please specify if that's OK with you or not.

USFS, Conference Calls and Love

Yesterday there was a conference call with the Law Enforcement and Investigations branch of the United States Forest Service. We learned that Gene Smithson will be the incident commander again this year as he was for the last few years (Arkansas 2007, Wyoming 2008, New Mexico 2009).

I personally am hoping (and asked on the call) if we can have a strong presence from the US Marshalls again this year as we did last year. As someone who spends a lot of time walking with the USFS Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs), I really appreciated the calming influence of the US Marshalls and felt they helped everyone behave in a much more low key manner.

Thanks to a friend, a recording of the call is available here.

Another friend of mine asked why we continue to have these calls when, in his opinion, nothing ever changes. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his sermon "Loving Your Enemies," which he wrote in 1957 while in jail far committing nonviolent civil disobedience during the Montgomery bus boycott, "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction."

To read the complete sermon, click here.Spread the love! I think it's what we do best.