Sam Houston Area Council
- It takes a heap of working with a boy to make a man.
- A heap of care and patience, and you’ve got to understand
- That he won’t be any better than you were as a lad,
- Unless a spark is kindled to show him what is bad.
- He looks to you for guidance, and he looks to you with pride
- It’s up to you to demonstrate you can’t just let it slide.
- For with that eager mind of his, he watches you each day;
- Judges you by what you’re doing not just by what you say.
San Gabriel Valley, Long Beach, Verdugo Hills Councils
In the movie “Toy Story,” an action figure named Buzz Lightyear became a hero. But at the beginning of the movie, Buzz did not act much like a hero. He acted more like a show-off, always thinking he was better than all the other toys because he could fly. It took a few hard bumps for Buzz to realize that he could not fly and that he was just another toy. That was a sad discovery, but it led to a much happier one. Buzz learned that when a person makes an extra effort to help a friend, then he is a true hero.
Buzz rose out of his own disappointment and fear to help save his friend Woody from disaster. That’s the way it is with us, too. We might never be able to fly off into space and save a galaxy, but if we learn how to be trustworthy and loyal to the people who depend on us, then we are heroes in the deepest sense of the word
Baltimore Area Council
Closing Thought #1
The words “Aim for the Stars” have an important meaning to Cub Scouts. Think of Thomas Edison who tried and failed hundreds of times before he perfected the electric light bulb. He never quit trying. A Cub Scout who tries to do his best and keeps trying is preparing himself for greater responsibilities when he becomes a man. What you do and how well you do it becomes your launching pad to “aim for the stars”
Closing Thought #2
We have talked this evening about what life will be like in the future. Let’s take a few minutes for the present time. A person’s perception of time keeps shifting. As the very old can tell you, time goes more swiftly the longer you live. An old man may look at a forest and remember when, in his childhood, that land was a plowed field. Time becomes telescoped, not by failing faculties, but by overlapped images. Each age offers a different vision that you can capture, borrow, and savor. The point is this - somewhere along the way, each individual needs to recognize that there is such a thing as personal time. Immediate events ranging from toothaches to far-reaching political crises cannot be set aside. But we really have a great deal of leeway in choosing what we do with our time. If you have been thinking about getting outdoors more often, have you set aside the time?
Closing Thought #3
Always remember, we are members of a team of men and women and young people from many nations who have ventured into space seeking the star of peace throughout the world.
Many of our U.S. astronauts were Scouts. The ideals of Scouting - character development, citizenship training, and personal fitness - which they developed as Scouts have helped them in the tremendous task undertaken.
Sam Houston Area Council
If I gave you a choice, which would you rather have, the apple or the seeds in the apple? I guess most of us would choose the apple.
A long time ago there was a guy who would much rather have taken the seeds. He was an avid collector of apple seeds and because of this, people called him Johnny Appleseed. For many years he walked across hundreds of miles of our country, back when most of it was frontier land, and everywhere he went he planted apple seeds. In later generations, the trees that grew from those seeds fed many thousands of people. That's real long range planning!
Many of us are interested mainly in the present. We don't think ahead like Johnny Appleseed. Maybe you don't want to go around planting apple seeds like he did. But there's another kind of seed that you should be planting every day - the seed of good feelings between you and your fellow man.
You can do it by living your Cub Scout Promise. Every time you help other people, you are planting a seed of good feelings. Each seed may start the growth of a tree of good feelings in each person you help. So, every time you help someone it may inspire them to help other people. Through the years your simple acts of kindness can wind up affecting the lives of thousands of people.