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Date Posted: 19:31:49 06/29/09 Mon
Author: Susan
Subject: Catching Up

Since activity on the Board as well as events in my life have suddenly become comparable to watching paint dry, I will fill you in on the craziness of the past few weeks. I'll begin with a bit of good news: My son finished his Eagle Scout Project for Boy Scouts! For those of you who aren't familiar with this admirable feat, it is quite a big deal, as well as quite a load of stress for the parents. An Eagle Scout is the highest honor in Boy Scouts. After years of toiling in the woods, cooking on campstoves, and not changing their underwear, the Scout must earn at least 21 merit badges and achieve the rank of Life Scout. He then plans and carries out his big Eagle Project, all before his 18th birthday. My son chose to build a cabinet for the nursery school at the church where his troop holds their meetings. So what can be so hard about that, you might ask. It shouldn't be, really, if he had the right supervision and the cabinet was of modest size. But, oh no, he had to build a cabinet that was 9 feet high, 11 feet wide, and 2 feet deep. Out of plywood. Without ever having built anything in his life before. You would think the troop would assign an adult mentor who HAD built a cabinet before. But, oh no, that would require a modicum of common sense on the part of the troop leadership. By the time the parent committee and the church committee signed off on the design, there was only one week to run around town trying to get donations before the work was scheduled to begin. That's another thing. The parents aren't allowed to pay for anything. The materials all have to be either donated or $ solicited (but not from parents). Now anyone who's ever built anything out of wood knows a cabinet (especially one as large as this one) should be put together with wood screws and plenty of support. But the "adult mentor" insisted it be NAILED together with FINISHING NAILS and wood glue. Even though my son knew this was wrong he didn't speak up because, damn that mother of his, she taught him to obey his elders. So after it's all put together and painted, the male leaders of the troop strut around inspecting it and come to the conclusion that it isn't sturdy enough. One even stated, "you're gonna have to tear it apart and start over." OK, these are the same people who signed off on the design. Why didn't they speak up then? For all you parents out there, I don't have to tell you what it's like to see the look of disappointment on your kid's face when he thought he was doing a good job, only to have to hear that kind of nonsense.

But the bright spot in all this foolishness was when a dad who is actually a professional woodworker told my son the cabinet looked great. Ever the optimist, he offered to help my son add some pieces of 2x2s to appease all the negativity. Suddenly, without the "adult mentor" around, my son was able to add tons of wood screws to the frame, as well as additional pieces of 2x2s, re-paint it, put some hasps and knobs on it, and call it a day. That cabinet isn't going anywhere for at least a hundred years. But, oh -- what a completely unnessary frustrating experience it turned out to be.

So that was an exhausting week and only one of my many anecdotes to share with you. I tried to paste a picture of the cabinet in this message but wasn't able to.

More of the continuing saga later!

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