A Little Time

To get into this story I have to start with the tail end of my scouting career. I started Scouts with not a lot of ambition and just was there for camping and to have fun with friends only ranking up once in my first year (this was well below average). Come my second year in scouting my best friend’s mom helped push me to start ranking up faster and getting the merit badges I needed. This did involve a few times staying up until 2 o’clock in the morning. Eventually I was caught up with everyone else moving up in ranks. I then hit that wall again and stopped mere steps away from attaining the rank of Eagle Scout. Following a transfer in troops where my best friend’s mom was the scoutmaster I kicked it back into gear and with some rough nights of anger, wanting to give up and being pushed across the finish line by my family I was an Eagle Scout.

The summer before I got Eagle in between Junior and Senior year I reconnected with my friend Aidan and started to talk to him about lots of things. One of which was my road to Eagle. Aidan Expressed to me that he was in scouting and made it clear through with only one step to go. He only had his project left. I told him that I thought he should keep going but he just kind of shrugged it off at first. I proceeded to keep talking about scouting and become an Eagle. Following this just before December Aidan told me he wanted to try to finish his scouting journey and take the final step to eagle. When he told me this I started showing him my workbook and what the project workbook would entail, even knowing his project would be different than mine I knew that this information would help.

You age out of scouting at 18 years of age, so Aidan and I had hit crunch time. It does not matter if you are still in school or not. With it nearing the end of the year Aidan had a month and a half to complete his project, before he turned eighteen years old. That being said, I knew we who we needed I told Aidan that if anyone can help him finish in the amount of time he had it would be my scoutmaster. I proceeded to make one quick phone call. With my best friend’s mom, on the other end of the line I started to explain Aidan’s situation. She told us that while this was not impossible, it was going to be very difficult, and that Aidan would need to poor all of his time and effort into this and school. This meant no time for goofing off, as we ended the phone call, Aidan began to text his old scoutmaster to get his records so he could get them to my scoutmaster and become part of my troop. After we got all his record transferred we set our plan in motion. Fast as I could, I found him the workbook pdf so he could get started on that, and hopefully get approval for his project done and quickly at that.

The workbook is debatably one of the hardest parts of the process. Broken down into three very repetitive parts. The first part is pre approval where you explain your project and what you have to do to get it done and what things you will provide. Aidan did a lot of this with my and now his scoutmaster. After completing this Aidan scheduled a meeting with the head of the district committee, and quickly got approved to move on to stage two. This stage is there the project begins but before the work starts you have to do the second part of the workbook which is taking the tips and tricks that district member, scoutmaster, and other people give you. Continuing to work with me and our scoutmaster, Aidan got this done and started working with his family, the troop, and anyone else. Aidans project was to help improve the community by building new benches for the dugouts for the litchfield recreational department as well as removing and taking care of disposing of the old ones. Aidan unlike most scouts did not have time to do much fundraising and had to pay out of his own pocket for a lot of his supplies. Upon completion of his project, Aidan was ready for the third and final step. Following the completion of his project Aidan had to finish the reflective part of the workbook. This meant back to late night meetings with me and our scoutmaster before finally being able to submit for his Eagle scout board of review.

The board of review is the last part that the candidate waiting to try to become the rank of eagle takes part in. Prior to this I told Aidan he could and should invite three people onto his board of review. He chose me, my mother, and another mother of a boy in my troop. On top of us, there would also be a member of the district committee chair on the board of review. This part is less about the project and more about getting to know who the scout is as a person and where he wants to go in life. I had the pleasure of being on Aidan’s board and watch as he loosened up and just talked about his life in scouting and everything that brought him to that place that day. Aidan was approved at the district level, but his project had to be sent to D.C to be sent and reviewed to and get final approval on did Aidan make it or not.

Aidan passed much in the same fashion I did, just with a bit less time. We learned that we can do a lot with the people that care about us at our sides. That is a lesson that I will not soon forget, and I am sure that Aidan will not either. I am looking forward to the day after COVID-19 is all over and I can swear Aidan in and have him take the pledge to become and join the rank of eagle.

Photo on Foter.com