My Boy Scout Summer: Big R and the Penny Jar

Big R scared us all.  I don't know why he was a scoutmaster.  He didn't have sons, only two daughters.  He wasn't all that interested in teaching us scouting skills and he didn't really care about making us productive citizens.  As far as I could tell, we were free labor to him. An older boy in the troop, whom we called Little R because his name was Arthur, was really the person we looked toward for scouting skills and leadership.  That was actually a mistake as we'll see in the next installment. 

I misspoke earlier.  I do know why he was the scoutmaster after all. In the Mormon Church, scoutmaster is a calling, and all callings come down as a result of prayer.  So the Bishop and his two counselors sat around looking at open assignments and then prayed to God for the message on who would best lead their young impressionable boys in their quest to become respectful men.  God sent his answer down, “Give them that enormous muscle-bound bastard over there with the super-hot daughters.”  And so we had a scoutmaster. 

Free Labor I said.  A couple times we went up to the mountains and cut wood for him.  A cord of firewood is about two pickup truck loads and takes one guy about four hours to cut, split and stack.  Big R would haul up a trailer that would hold seven cords of firewood and his scouts would fill it up for him.  Since no family can use seven cords of firewood in a season, the detective in me might suspect that Big R was selling the firewood.  Of course no detective was needed since we were the ones who helped him unload the wood at other people's houses.  He always said it was a scout fund-raising project, but I don't recall seeing that money come back to the scouts.

Another example of scouts as labor came when he decided to dig a cellar. When you walked into Big R's house, you were right in the living room and to your left was the top of a spiral staircase leading down to the basement.  The stairs were very shaky, not wooden but instead were steel stairs circling around what appeared to be a fireman's pole.  The wrought iron railing (not banister by any means) always shook and bent giving one the feeling that this ride needed safety harnesses.  The basement was a fully finished family room, weight room, and workshop. The weight room rivals what was available at Gold's Gym – free weights, benches, machines, leg press station, etc.  He had us gut the workshop area, and then we pick-axed through the concrete floor/foundation until we got to dirt.  Then we dug an eight-foot deep hole at least fifteen-feet square where that workshop used to be, poured new concrete for a new floor and walls, and then built a wooden floor with a trap door and stairs.  All this without a building permit, without structural license, and without pay.  Big R got a hell of a lot more out of the scouts than we got out  of his remarkable leadership.

And all that dirt?  We hauled it up those rickety stairs, a five-gallon paint bucket full at a time.  What fools we were.

 

At the entrance to the house, as you recall where the staircase started, the railings met with the wall to make a small enclosed triangle.  In this triangle, Big R kept a five-gallon glass water cooler jar filled more than half full with pennies.  And here was the challenge he smugly gave us:  Whoever could lift the jar out of the enclosure without help could have the contents.  For us, that looked like a lot of money.  In retrospect, rolling all those pennies and taking them to the bank seems like a lot of work. 

We all tried just lifting it out and none of us budged it.  Big R however, could reach down and snatch the thing right up.  But the guy was a walking truck with legs so muscled his joints bowed outward.  A true Marine who'd been in 'Nam.  His answer to the question boys ask military men, “Did you kill anyone?” was, with a piercing glare, “Not enough, yet.”  Made you shiver.

So there we were, hauling up buckets of dirt and scheming about the penny jar while Big R would do another set of bench presses with his tank top on and sweat running down the flesh canals formed by protruding veins over rippling tanned muscles.  Lisa, the good looking girl my age, and Mary, who was in college, would usually have friends over and they'd be in the family room laughing at us or complaining about the noise.  Mary had one friend, Gretchen,  who was always over.  She was the first girl I can ever remember who painted designs into her nails instead of solid colors.  She'd sit and complain about the dirt and dust while painting stars and moons on each lethal long nail.

Shovels chipping, weights clanking, boys talking, stairs creaking, girls complaining, music blaring.  Day after day like this and the only reasons I can think of that we put up with it was that there wasn't anything else to do and being around hot girls was fun. 

Until after my Eagle Project.

When I got back, Lisa already knew that I'd had sex with Mandy and she was pissed.  Pissed number one because I'd had sex and we were Mormon and that wasn't right.  Pissed number two because her and I were supposed to be an item even though there was no chance of sex between us.  Pissed number three because it made her look bad that I'd stayed up in Rexburg with a slut.  So, there wasn't anything else for me to do but to tell Lisa that I didn't want to go out with her any more even though we'd really not been going out but instead had been pretending to be something we weren't.  So, she cried and got mad and told Big R.

Uh oh.

First, Big R threw me out of Scouts.  But then he found out that he really couldn't do that for any of those reasons, so he sat me down and we had the strangest lecture of my life.

“Now Rick,” he began.  “I know all about girls.  Hell, before I became active in the church again I used to love all those LBFM's in Vietnam.”

“LBFM?” I asked.  I was only sixteen.  What the hell did I know about South Asian Prostitutes?

“Girls. Loose girls who'll have sex with anyone,” he explained.  This isn't the talk you want to have with the father of the girl you just dumped.  “But they ain't as great as you think. What you want is a girl who'll respect you and one that you can respect and that's a whole lot more satisfying than sex.  I'd give up sex forever if I had the choice between sex and respect.”

“Yes, sir.”  That's what you say to the monster who crushes Coke cans top to bottom between his palms.

“Rick. I don't want you showing any more interest in my daughter, Lisa.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And I don't want you coming over to work on scout projects at my house anymore.  It's making her uncomfortable,” he said.

“Uh, you mean digging your basement and hauling wood?  Are those scout projects?”

“Yes, digging the basement.  But you can still help haul wood.  That's away from the house.”  So free labor was still in, just not close to Lisa. 

“Okay, sir. But I have one question.”

“Ask away, young man.”

“Can I still try to lift that penny jar?”

At this he laughed loudly and looked at my skinny basketball arms, “You can try.”

A couple of weeks later I knocked on Big R's door and he answered. “I'm here to pick up the penny jar, sir.”

“Well come on in.”

I stood over that jar for a moment, then I pulled out a rope I'd brought with a stick tied to the end.  I shove the stick into the neck until it twisted sideways and wouldn't come back out.  Then I put a piece of ¾ pipe over the door which was wide open nearly over the jar, and I threw the rope over that and got to the other side and used all my weight to pull down on that rope and the penny jar lifted out of the triangle.  When it was free of the wrought iron railing I felt the door give and stepped forward and let the jar down and it was outside of its enclosure. 

The boys were there and they all cheered.

Big R was at first silent, but then his eyes narrowed and he began hollering about how the deal was not open to gimmicks and tricks. Then he chased me out of his house and down to the street.  He wasn't giving me the pennies, that's for sure.  I didn't think he'd be giving me any more merit badges either. 

Almost cheated him out of his daughter's innocence.  Almost took his pennies.  Would the third strike be the out for me?

rick, treading on dangerous ground.

Next episode I try something a little safer.  A suicide canoe run through the roughest rapids in the country.

First episode:  My Boy Scout Summer.

Comments

[a rose is a rose]

wow you were a little s**t weren't you!!!
an eagle scout after my OWN heart!

how do you think big r reconcilled his lying to you about the pennies and his mormon faith?

another question (or two) please. how old were you when you were no longer mormon? were you still a (practicing) mormon at the time you got busy with Mandy?

[CV Rick]

Oh, yeah Rose. I was a little shit.

Big R ends up with a lot more to reconcile as this story goes on. And yes, I was very much a Mormon when I got busy with Mandy. I didn't "stray" until I was 20 and I didn't get excommunicated until I was 27.

[mark]

you are the reason I'd never want to have a kids...especially a girl!

You were excommunicated? WOW. I just quit going!

[Success Warrior]

Sounds like I missed out on a lot of cool scout projects.

[CV Rick]

Do you remember that stupid Penny Jar though, Success Warrior?

[Success Warrior]

I do remember the jar. I tried to lift it. It was hard not just because of the weight but because the railing kept you from getting good leverage on the jar. It was all arm and back strength. The old "lift with your legs" thing couldn't be applied.

[Cherise]

Love the blog this morning. Big R sounds like a Big Ass. :)

[CV Rick]

Cherise,

We're not done with Big R yet. ;-)

[CV Rick]

Mark, I didn't know you were a Mormon.

[mark]

I wasn't...I'm a Recovering Wisconsin Synod Lutheran

[CV Rick]

Mark,

But you said, "You were excommunicated? WOW. I just quit going!" and I didn't know there were any kind of parallels between quitting the Mormon Church and the Lutheran Church. Do they hold a traditional court with a council of appointed High Priests to determine your worthiness to go to heaven and then condemn you to eternal damnation for the horrible act of denying the truth of the church after having been baptized and accepted? Do they inform your family that they are now tainted by the specter of sin within the clan to the point that because of the sinner's actions they won't be able to become worthy enough to achieve the highest level of heaven? Do they hound you for years and years afterward to renounce your sins and be rebaptized into the faith so as not to curse your parents and siblings with your own taint?

[Success Warrior]

Whew! The curse stops with parents and siblings. I was afraid it could be carried through email and blog comments.

[mark]

no silly, I just find it funny that you can't just "quit" the mormon church...if you re-read my comment, maybe that will come out.

[Sister Mary Lisa]

This story is great stuff. Can't wait to hear more.

[CV Rick]

I'm glad to hear you say that, Sister Mary Lisa. There are twelve total installments in My Boy Scout Summer and I figure that they'll go out once or twice a week. Enjoy.