When I joined the Scouts, I went straight into the Webelos, but one of the requirements before I could officially cross over, at least according to the scoutmaster, was to complete the courses in the Cub Scout handbooks for Tiger, Wolf, and Bear. It was a sort of crash course in scouting skills, and while I learned a lot, some of the tasks, especially those from the Tiger book, felt a bit redundant.
One of the skills I needed to master was essentially Community Training. The idea was to do something for the betterment of the community as long as it brought joy to people. Since it was Christmas and I was in the elementary school chorus, I decided to go Christmas caroling with some of the other scouts. Unfortunately, none of the other scouts showed up, so it was just my mom and me.
It was cold that night. Bear in mind, we lived in Florida, so the temperatures probably weren't that bad, but to us, it felt freezing. We bundled up, and I even wore a knit hat under my Webelos cap, which I technically hadn't earned yet. Months earlier, I had been trick-or-treating, so I knew where most of the older people in our neighborhood lived. I strategically avoided any houses with people I knew. The game plan was simple: knock on the door, and the moment it opened, Mom and I would start singing "Silent Night." Mom was my witness and had to sign off on all my tasks. She could have made it easy, but she didn't.
Things didn't go as planned. At the first house, no one opened the door. The second house was answered by a kid with snot hanging from his nose, who told us his mom was throwing up, which we could hear. The third door belonged to a grumpy old lady I remembered from a school fundraiser in the third grade. She snatched the door open and screamed, "WHAT THE F*** DO YOU WANT?" I started crying, and Mom, trying to console me, called her an old biddy as we walked home.
After that, Mom took mercy on me. She signed off on my task and spent 30 minutes making up stories about how we entertained the masses with our voices. Even though things didn’t go as planned, it's a memory that makes me smile because mama had a way of making things seem better when things went wrong.
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