Keskustelujen arkisto

The Boy Scouts of America handbook is called... The Boy Scout Handbook.

Here it is on the official site: http://www.bsahandbook.org/

(My son is a Cub Scout, and I'm a den leader for the local pack here in PA.)

It goes like this...

Grade 1 = Tiger Cub
Grade 2 = Wolf Cub
Grade 3 = Bear Cub
Grade 4 = Webelos I (Webelos stands for "We Be Loyal Scouts")
Grade 5 = Webelos II
Grades 6-12 = Boy Scout

Kids start as Cub Scouts around age 6 or 7, which at that point they could be considered "Junior" Boy Scouts. They progress through the ranks until reaching "Boy Scout" status in their sixth year. Each scouting group has its own handbook until the kids finally become "real" Boy Scouts at around age 12 or 13 (usually the 6th grade.)

And no, coonskin hats are not part of the BSA uniform... they usually wear ball caps. ;)

I don't know the ages anymore, but these are our groups:
-Beavers
-Gnomes
-Cubs(? Robb? Do you know the English word for welpen?)
-Estas
-Scouts (boys)
-Guides (girls)
-Rowans (boys)
-Sherpas (girls)
-Pivos
Now the kids went from toddlers, through children and young teens, to become adults.

Thanks, Robb and Kneon. So Barks wisely avoided the official BSA title. If my memory serves me right, he never even used terms like "boy scouts" or "scouting" in his stories.
Speaking of coonskin caps, somehow I had assumed these might have been inspired by the "Davy Crockett" TV series. But I see that Barks actually wrote his first Woodchuck story several years earlier. Was that kind of hat in any wide-spread use back then, except among trappers and hunters?

Barks started using The Junior Woodchucks' caps in a Feb. 1951 story (which was written and drawn in 1950. Therefore, it is more likely (although not very likely) that the "Davy Crockett" and Daniel Boone" TV shows got their inspiration from Barks rather than the other way round. The Cub and Boy Scouts were rather conservative in dress. As a parody in a comic book or strip, that doesn't make much impression. As The Scouts taught forest/woodcraft and "survival" techniques, it was natural that his parody should have their costume be more flamboyant in the direction of a woodsman's dress. Naturally Barks, the master of creating "believable" fictional scenarios, would use such a creative, but plausible (and fitting for parody) uniform hat.

A little search shows that there was made a movie about Davy Crockett, which was called "Davy Crockett, Indian Scout". This movie is about cousin of the actual Davy. It went into cinemas on January 6, 1950. This is a few month before Barks submitted his story to Western. That was on August 31, 1950.

No, it was the George Montgomery version. I knew Barks to the movies, but not that rarely. So I think you're right.