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John Long

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From the RoundTable blog

Imagine walking down a dark urban street and you suddenly realize that a group of teenage boys is walking behind you. How do you feel?

You sneak an apprehensive glance over your shoulder, and you see that the youth are all wearing the uniform of the Boy Scouts of America. Now, feel a sense of relief?

I remember my first acquaintance with Scouting. My older brother was a Cub Scout, and came home from a meeting one day with a wonder: a cardboard pirate's sword, the blade covered with aluminum foil, the hilt made with black tape.

My meager description may not reveal it to be the coolest thing ever, but believe me, it was. I determined then and there to be a Scout. Two years later when my mom told me I was old enough to join the Cubs, I ran all the way to my first meeting.

I've never left. In my last column I described some of what goes on at the Blue Ridge Scout Reservation in Pulaski, where I was spending a week as an adult leader and where I've spent at least a few nights every summer since I was 11. Fellow Scouts know what a gem we have in our back yard. But in my experience, most others are only vaguely aware of the camp. Few realize what exemplary programs are offered there.

Blue Ridge Scout Reservation is the largest council-owned Scout camp in America, and one of the busiest, drawing Scouts from across the nation, even the globe. It has an excellent and dedicated staff, most of whom camped there as Scouts. Some go on to become professional Scouters.

I was at Ottari, the smaller of the two base camps. Larger and better known is Powhatan. With me at Ottari were about 350 Scouts and leaders, while Powhatan the same week hosted nearly 900. They come for good reasons: Powhatan offers unmatched Scout training.

If you attended Powhatan years ago, you wouldn't recognize it today. An immense dining hall feeds the boys with lightning efficiency. Up the hill is the new nature lodge, complete with amphitheater, classrooms, animal cages and an artificial waterfall. You'd not be surprised to find this facility at a small college.

Wander up Jersey Ridge and you'll find the COPE program -- Challenging Outdoor Personal Experience. It's a high-adventure ropes and climbing course, where Scouts learn how gravity works on the human body. My favorite feature was the "giant's ladder." The rungs are beams hung on steel cables a few feet apart; Scouts climb in pairs and soon figure out that the distance between the rungs increases as they go. They also learn that they can succeed only by working as a team -- not such a bad life lesson.

A Scout looking for other challenges can find them at the Scout reservation. In fact, they can experience a different program every summer of their Scout career and not exhaust them all. Understandably popular is the stellar Claytor Lake Aquatics Base, offering youth experience in rowing, small- and large-boat sailing, scuba, even water-skiing. In the next year or two, the aquatics base will move from a leased facility to a permanent 60-acre home.

If they prefer dry land, Scouts can opt for the High Knoll Trail Camp, six glorious days hiking the trails of the reservation, visiting various instruction areas along the way. It's mostly flat trails too -- if you accept the High Knoll definition of flat. Stand upright with your arm stretched out in front of you, and if you don't touch dirt, then that's flat ground.

Most of the improvements in the past 15 years have been made possible by popcorn -- the Boy Scout version of Girl Scout cookies. When the cute Cub Scout knocks on your door this fall, rest assured your snack supports a great cause.

Someday, your life will intersect with a man who attended Blue Ridge Scout Reservation as a youth. You'll hire him, or he'll be the policeman who responds to your accident, or the doctor who treats your injuries, or your kid's teacher. "That's a good man," you'll say. You might not realize he's a better man because in his youth he spent a few weeks sleeping in tents.

If you know a boy who would benefit from Scouting, contact the Blue Ridge Mountains Council at 265-0656 or www.bsa-brmc.org.

Long, director of the Salem Museum and a history teacher at Roanoke College, is a Roanoke Times columnist.