From: "settummanque, the blackeagle" (Mike Walton)
Via: Scouts-L Youth Programs Discussion List

(extracted from "Patches and Pins (or The Quest for Silver Animals and other assorted crap)", written by Mike L. Walton © 1988 )

Paul in the Bible speaks about love: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things "
(I Cor 13:11)

Upon my graduation from high school, I started to do more work both on post with the Youth Activities Directorate and within Scouting, working alongside several District Executives and when I was not at some camp, I was having a little fun with my peers in Rose Terrace.

My parents waited until I had started my college days at Eastern Kentucky to tell me one weekend that "Your father's going to retire and we're thinking about buying a house in Radcliff".

That was good. Little sleepy Radcliff was okay. My father did not really need to retire, but I can understand why he chose to do it now. He has spent 24 years of his life in the Army. If he stayed in, he would have to take a First Sergeant's position someplace, which meant that he would go back to the Training Brigade and we would see less of him than we did when he was a Drill Sergeant.

He deserved to retire.

So, I did not complain at all when my mom announced that they would be moving.

I came home to see the new place, but I couldn't come home the following month to help them move everything to the new place. The new home -- their present home -- is simply beautiful and is a well-earned reward for my father's long, hard hours of putting up with people's crap -- and my mother's willingness to forgo any desires or interests she had to "be beside Robert" and her children. Five bedrooms, a full basement, three baths, a great room and a living room, a laundry room and lots of space for books and things. A fireplace, a roomy kitchen and a porch.

It was simply heaven.

I staked out the larger of the two bedrooms downstairs but my mother stopped me before I could get the words "This is mine!" out. "Your brothers are going to have those two rooms downstairs. Remember, you're in college now and we hope you're gonna get your own place to live".

She was right in a way. I will get married and have my own place. I really didn't want to live there with my parents unless things forced me to do so.

I just nodded and looked around the rest of the house.

A month later, they moved into the house, and two months later the semester was over and I was on my way home to "visit at the new house".

"You'll always live in Rose Terrace, will you, Mike?", my mother asked me as we drove back home. "It's the only place you've really lived in. Just give this a fair chance, that's all I'm asking. Your brothers need to know what real life is all about and not the shelter of living on base like you have."

I nodded. The words between what she said was "I want them to grow up as Black boys, not as whatever you think you are living at the Army bases".

I came into the house, and walked around the new place several times. Then, after dinner that evening, I asked my mother the fateful question.

"Where are all of my things?"

"What things are you talking about, Micheal?" (I HATE it when she calls me that).

"My things. My cars, the Motorific tracks, the cards, my Scouting medals and awards -- did you put them in a box somewhere?"

My mother laughed slightly, and then turned to meet me. "I threw all of that stuff out, Micheal. You didn't need those things....you're going to be a man soon, and I guessed you wouldn't need that junk..."

I raised my voice, something you don't do to your mother...at least I shouldn't do it to my mother. But I did.

"Why did you do that?? The tracks and cars, I can see. I can also see some of the old clothes. But my Scouting stuff?"

"Don't raise your voice to me, son!", my mother started in reply. "You've got so much of that Scouting stuff...you get more awards and things than anyone else I know of. I didn't think you would even miss those cards and pictures and pieces of paper."

I reflected on just what did she throw away. Nine trail medals. A box containing my earliest photos and pictures I've traded with other kids in the waning days of my high school and middle school years. My Hornaday certificate and a Certificate of Heroism. Certificates from the Youth Activities and Red Cross. A Junior Military Police shield and card. My two Scouting uniforms I left behind so that I would have something to wear "back home". National Explorer Presidents Congress materials and booklets. Love letters and hate mail. My "black book" (even though it was really white, one of the freebies given away by the telephone company during the State Fair one year).

And the little things, like a menu from the Kingfish resturant where I went with Brenda Kay's family. Brenda and I ordered off of that same menu. Eagle Scout Court of Honor programs from my Court of Honor and other Eagle Scout friends of mine. Junior ROTC orders promoting me to various cadet ranks. Ribbons, medals, and devices from JROTC and the Junior MPs. Cassette tapes from programs I recorded from TV, because our family could not afford a VCR in those days. A necklace given to me by Chanelle Simmons for helping her through her grand mal seizure. Religious diaries. High school notes that I wrote to remind myself for "entry into a future book".

I woke up from my recollections in time to hear my mother continue.
"I threw them away because of what the Bible says. You need to stop trying to keep everything you own and stop trying to be a kid. What were you going to do with all of that stuff? Besides, you know that the Bible says -- you know that "you're supposed to forget about childish things".

"I'm sorry if I threw out something you thought valuable. But you weren't here and there was no way we were going to bring all of that junk over here to this house. From what I saw in your room, what you didn't take with you when you went to college, was nothing but papers and junk."

"Did you know that you had badges cut out and put on the back of your door? What was that about?" It was just junk, that's all..."

Those badges were first cut from a old Boy Scout Handbook when I was eight. I had them all lined up on my mirror and later, they were all on the backside of the door to my room. I earned them all except for the Honor Medal and Medal of Merit I cut out. And except for the Vigil Honor pin I put on the center of the OA ribbon pin. Since 8 years old.

I didn't reply. I wanted to yell at her, but she knew I was clearly upset and disappointed in her. I wanted to say "Wasn't valuable to YOU, but those pieces of paper and cards and badges and things are MY LIFE you just tossed in the Dipsey Dumpster. My life.
I just sat there, listening to her continue on and on about how they had to move everything themselves and why my two brothers' things were brought over. "They live here, and you live on Keene Hall now".

I didn't return to that house for almost four months after that conversation. I spent much of the spring semester trying to find copies of some of the things my mother threw out. The Council did not keep a copy of the Certificate of Heroism, but they did send me a darken photocopy of my Hornaday Medal Certificate. The trail medals and JROTC medals are gone, and I am still trying to find those to this day. The love letters are gone, with the exception of a small box I hid from myself at the TV station along with a couple of plaques I was going to give to fellow leaders of my Post.

The BSA doesn't make the Young American Award plaques with the lucite anymore, which two of the are sitting in waste-management or landfill sites somewhere. The same goes for a speech contest plaque I got from the Southeast Region. Baseball cards, Matchbox {tm} cars, and Hot Wheels {tm} track sections all go for several times what I bought the cars and track for nowadays.

I have learned two valuable lessons from this episode in my life. First, that my mother could care less about what I did in Scouting and to keep her "in the know" about what I did was going to be a futile effort. So stop telling her. The other, more important lesson, is that I pack my own stuff for any future move. In this way, I know exactly what I threw out for "childish" or any other reasoning.

I realized something else from this too. Home would never mean the same for me as it would other kids.

My life has made one of those turns that I later diagrammed as part of a class assignment.

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Settummanque!