Ask A Genius 1096: The Boy Scouts and Rick
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/08/23
Insert extensive pre-talk rambling by Scott and Rick.]
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Rick, could you explain why you decided to leave or quit the Boy Scouts?
Rick Rosner: I assume the Canadian Boy Scouts operate similarly. Were you ever involved in the Boy Scouts?
Jacobsen: Not that I recall.
Rosner: Well, the progression typically involves Cub Scouts, Webelos, and then Boy Scouts. Webelos are, what, around ten years old? 10 or 11? I never participated in Cub Scouts, but some of my friends—Charlie Weidman and others—were involved, and we were Webelos. We earned several Webelos activity badges and essentially completed the program. However, no one else wanted to advance except me so we could not form a new Boy Scout troop. If I recall correctly, the individual who was our Webelos leader, Bobby Mailer’s father, also managed the Cub Scout pack.
We were rather unkind to him, being typical unruly kids. Bobby’s father likely thought, “Well, I’m done with this.” Since no one else was interested, I had to find another Boy Scout troop to join, which was Mr. Bradfield’s troop. He owned the hardware store near my father’s store on Pearl Street.
Mr. Bradfield was a very kind man. He lived just a few blocks from us, and I knew his daughter, Nancy Bradfield—I should look her up online. In any case, I joined the troop, but unfortunately, they were unkind to me.
Nowadays, bullying can occur both in person, at school, and through social media. Back then, it was entirely face-to-face. If someone wanted to be mean, they had to do it directly. Do you think bullying was more subtle or more overt in those days? I’m still determining.
It wasn’t severe bullying, but they made it clear that I was viewed as a dweeb, a nerd, and not as cool as they were. Andthey were probably correct. For instance, Keith Hertel, who was in the troop, was undoubtedly cooler than I was.
Chandler Romeo’s brother might have also been part of the troop and was certainly cooler than me. Their father was an airline pilot, considered a very prestigious job back then. So, yes, I could have been more cool. We did the usual activities that scouts do, such as camping trips, even during the winter.
Some councils had a badge called “Zero Hero” that awarded points based on how many degrees below freezing it was during a camping trip at the coldest time of the night. For instance, if the temperature dropped to 0°F, we would earn 32 points. I camped out often enough to earn the badge.
I don’t know how many ranks there are, maybe 6 or 7. I wasn’t having fun with them. And we were doing some freaking scout event activity.
We’d meet in the auditorium in the gym of Sacred Heart School and learn how to do CPR on Annie dolls. But we were doing some, once a week, we do a scout thing. And I was listening to some of these guys who were supposed to be cooler than me. These were all 12 or 13, and a couple ignored me. I was standing doing some freaking thing. They were talking among themselves, 3 of them, about how it felt really good if you took your pillow at night and rubbed it between yourlegs–just kinda humped it. I recall something like this being told to me.
These guys didn’t even understand that they were on the path to jerking off. They were so incompetent at jerking off. They didn’t even know they were doing it. They just knew it felt good if you humped a pillow.
I thought, “These guys are complete idiots, and I refuse to be bullied by idiots. If I’m going to be bullied, I want it to be by people I can at least respect.”
So, I lost respect for those guys and quit the Scouts. This experience was similar to the summer between 8th and 9th grade when I attended a Jewish summer camp, Camp Swede. I was bullied by the so-called cool kids from Sunday school. This was my second year at the camp. Everyone was just downcast the first year, and nobody was particularly cool.
And so, it was okay. We could have been more cool together. I was less cool than most guys, but it wasn’t an issue. However, during the second summer, the Sunday school made a deal to encourage more kids to attend the camp: if youspent two weeks at camp, you could skip a trimester of Sunday school. As a result, all the cool kids from Sunday school decided to go to camp, where they acted like complete jerks.
One of the kids I remember well was a tall guy with large lips, and he nicknamed me “Gus,” or they, as a group, nicknamed me “Gus” because they thought it was the worst name they could come up with for a male first name. There was also an exchange student at the camp, possibly from Germany. They tried putting someone’s hand in warm water while sleeping, which is supposed to make them wet the bed. When that didn’t work, they just poured the water on his crotch to make it look like he had wet the bed.
There was one girl who broke into the camp pharmacy and stole antihistamines to get high. After they nicknamed me”Gus,” the same guy gave me another nickname, “Liver Lips,” because I have large lips. This was particularly infuriating because his lips were twice as big and floppy as mine. I hated being bullied, and after that summer, I decided I wouldn’tallow myself to be bullied anymore.
When I entered 9th grade, if anyone bothered or was mean to me, I would punch them in the face, specifically in the cheek. The cheek is a good place to punch someone because it doesn’t leave a visible mark. If you hit someone hard enough, it might leave a mark, but I would hit them normally. It’s quite shocking to be punched in the face when you’vebeen bullying someone, and then the person suddenly retaliates.
Anyway, I hit about five people, including Mindy Robbie, a girl who was unpleasant to me at Sunday school. For some reason, I didn’t get into much trouble for it. I even threw my Trapper Keeper at a kid, maybe Dean Maruna, who was lightly teasing me. It wasn’t serious ridicule, but by then, it didn’t take much to provoke me because, by that point, I was almost enjoying it.
I threw the Trapper Keeper at his head, and since I was a nerd, it was full of papers I had already accumulated. You had to place it face down so the pressure of the paper wouldn’t cause it to burst open. But when it hit his head, papers went flying everywhere. Surprisingly, I still didn’t get into much trouble for that.
Eventually, people knew not to mess with me. I want to say they stopped making fun of me, but I guess they didn’tentirely. At a basement party, I was trying to talk to a girl, and though I felt somewhat vindicated, I eventually stopped hitting people. Later that year, I desperately tried to convince a girl to kiss me.
I had no chance, but I was trying hard, using the angle of pretending not to know how to kiss. I would ask her, “How do you kiss? Just teach me how to kiss. Is it about suction or pressure?” The girl told everyone that “suction or pressure” was written on blackboards throughout the school.
So, I became a figure of ridicule. I mean, I deserved it. But what I eventually realized was that I was right in refusing to be bullied anymore because those kids from Cherry Creek High School—the fanciest public high school in Colorado—were not worth it. Cherry Creek is a very affluent part of Denver, and it took me a long time to realize that the so-called cool kids at Sunday school were likely ridiculed and bullied at Cherry Creek High because they were just a bunch of, like, weird Jewish kids in a very blonde state like Colorado. I’m sure the cool kids at Cherry Creek High were not the Jewish kids but the athletic, tall, blonde kids—the stereotypical jocks and cheerleaders of the class of ’78.
So, in hindsight, I took a stand against being bullied by people who didn’t deserve the honour of bullying me.
Rick Rosner, American Comedy Writer, www.rickrosner.org
Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Independent Journalist, www.in-sightpublishing.com
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