Editor’s Comments: 

Our thanks to Dave Lyons for putting this issue of Baloo’s Bugle together and sharing it with Scouters from around the world.

Focus

Cub Scout Program Helps

With summer ending, it's time to round-up your Cub Scouts to begin another Scouting year. Boys spend the month learning about the "Old West". What did frontier boys do for fun? There are lots of good stories to be told around the campfire and lots of fun costumes to make. Cub Scouts can use cardboard boxes to make their own covered wagons and horses, then have rodeos, roping contests, and wagon races. Circle those wagons around the campfire and have a Chuckwagon Dinner at your pack meeting. Don't forget the tin cups and plates!

Cub Scout Roundtable leaders Guide

Some of the purposes of Cub Scouting developed through this month’s theme are:

• Spiritual Growth, Boys will realize that life in the Old West wasn’t easy and that religion was important in daily life.

• Fun and Achievement, Boys play games and learn skills from the Old West.

• Personal Achievement, Boys learn new skills and improve and improve upon those skills while practicing for the Wagon Rally.

The core value highlighted this month is:

• Courage, Boys will learn that to be “brave” one needs spirit to overcome difficult situations.

Can you think of others???

This is my third Baloo and each one gets rougher to do as I try and improve each month.  This month there were a lot of good patriotic ceremonies in the Pow Wow books I have.  They sort of fit the western pioneer theme but not completely.  So, I thought I would put them into a file for later this year when a red, white and blue patriotic theme occurs – Guess what?? There isn’t an Uncle Sam or American Heritage theme this year – so I included those that I liked and am suggesting you should file some of these for later use in your Packs and Dens.

Get Outside – It’s August!

Keep those Cubs moving outside!  I keep Baloo away from too many indoor crafts and games this month – your cubs don’t want to be inside yet.  When school reopens is soon enough.

I live in New Jersey, so you are probably picturing oil refineries and densely populated suburbs.  You are wrong.  After working on the Naturalist and Forester sections of Baloo, I gained a new appreciation for my daily ride to work.  I go past two horse farms (There must be two dozen colts this year at one), a pig farm and numerous agricultural fields.  Along the way I go past wildlife preserves and every day I get to see the ever-changing beauty of Mannington Meadow.  This is a tidal area I cross on my way to work.  There are always different birds coming and going.  The plants along the sides and on the water change with the seasons.  The sky is always different over the meadow, too.  In winter, it is fun to see ducks swimming in the one stream through the meadow that isn’t frozen.  It is always relaxing after along day at work when I get here and am able take in the views.  My last six miles into work is over a marsh that has filled in over the years between the mainland and “The Island.”  I see muskrat houses, Osprey nests, and deer feeding along the side of the road as I near the plant.  Once I saw a fox running!  This appreciation I am sure is something I caught during my ten years in Scouting as a youth.  I know it wasn’t taught because I would not have listened!   So our challenge today is to have our Cubs catch this same appreciation of the beauty of God’s earth.