From Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts...being a kid again.

Yesterday eve, my son graduated, or "crossed-over" as you will, into the local Boy Scout Troop from Cub Scouts. I have been the Cub Master or a leader in some sense of our local group now for almost 5 years now. I have spent almost every event, every den meeting, and every campout with him and a group of boys from his den over that time, and have grown to know, love and care about these boys. In many ways, I think of them as my boys and feel I have a vested interest in their development and success in life. Over these years, which in reality is only a small portion of the time they will be on this earth, I hope that all that we have done together will make some sort of difference for them and help them become good people. I especially hope this for my son. I have tried to be the best scout leader I can for them and hope I have succeeded. In many ways, my experience in Cub Scouting and now soon, in Boy Scouting, is as much for me as it is for my son or the other boys.
As a kid, I only participated in Cub Scouts for a short time. The organization was very small, poorly developed and my parents, in all honesty, probably didn't think it was all that important. So I never really did anything in Cub Scouts other than a Derby or two and can't even remember what rank I earned. So now, I am reliving, or better yet, getting another chance to be a Cub Scout as a kid in his 30's. Soon I will get another chance to be a Boy Scout, but this time I get to do it some of my good friends, who just happen to be about 30 years younger than me. I feel some of the same excitement, the same tension, and the same thrill that these boys do when they are doing scout activities. Yeah, I have an advantage of 30 years of life experience to fall back on, but when I am doing these things with them, I honestly feel like I am 10 years old again.
My wife likes to say that I am just one of the kids she has to take care of, and she is probably right. (Without her, I think I would be a rather immature mess.) Maybe that is why I enjoy the scouting activities so much and connect so well with these boys. I am just a big kid and they know it. Yeah, I gotta be the adult sometime, but I like it much better when I get to be the kid along with them.
When I was putting my son's little blue Cub Scout shirt away today, I got a little nostalgic, a little emotional, and maybe a little sad, because in that shirt, that shirt that was way to big to begin with but is now just starting to fit my son properly, there is almost 5 years of experiences, activities, fun, disappointments, acheivements, friendships, and life in it. As I held it, I was over whelmed with the amount of life that went into that shirt. It is merely a shirt, but in it resides a multitude of memories for me and I hope that the same holds true for my son and for the other boys in his den. If not now, maybe someday in the future when he and they find these dusty little shirts in a box of other things, they will remember what they did in those shirts. And hopefully they will remember me too. I hope so. I makes me feel good to think that 20-30 years down the line they might remember me doing things with them and make them smile. Maybe they will even look me up and give me a call.
My son and these other boys are growing up, and I am growing up all over again right along with them. I do hope that as they become young men and adults, I can teach them to remember that while we must all grow older, none of us has to really, ever, truly grow up.