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Comment by kiernanmcgowan | Hacker News Reader

I'm just thinking back to my time in scouting and can only imagine what it would be like to teach a bunch of 14-16 y/os the 1920s equivalent of MMA. Probably about 30min of fun until kids just start hitting each other as hard as they can with sticks.

Still sounds more fun than the basket weaving merit badge though.

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Hey man, my first year at summer camp all I did was basket weaving, leather working, and pottery. I originally planned to do swimming and some other adventurous stuff but was too overwhelmed by the swim test to be allowed in the lake and had a bit of a meltdown before changing course. I spent the whole week chilling in camp or the crafting grove working with my hands - it was great.

A few years later I went to a different summer camp as a senior patrol leader and finally got my swimming badge along with canoeing and rock climbing - that was a great week too. Point being: there's value in the "boring" stuff, maybe even more so now that I'm established in my career and looking for a little more peace these days. Lately I've been strangely interested in weaving and am thinking of making a simple loom - maybe this goes back to my basket weaving experience when I was 10?

I wasn't at all worried BEFORE that swim test, but afterwards I can safely say that was legitimately difficult and pretty terrifying. Especially when you realize the lake we did it in was full of leeches, which was completely foreign to me at the time.

Ah summer lake leaches. Stuff of nightmares. My understanding was as long as you didn’t touch the mucky bottom you were in the clear? I swam in New England lakes for 20 years and never had one myself but saw several.

Probably why I did the mile swim several times, treading water to keep leach free builds endurance.

I had Scouts earn the Mile Swim award offshore in Hawaii.

Did you do basket weaving? Basket weaving was super chill and could make you feel like an adult in some important ways. My baskets were a disaster but talking to friends about favorite video games while weaving them was like free therapy.

> but talking to friends about favorite video games while weaving them was like free therapy.

This is backwards. Your friends aren't cheap knockoffs of a therapist. Therapists are people you pay to pretend to be your friend.

This is bassakwards. A therapist isn’t supposed to be - let alone pretend to be - your friend at all.

No parasocial experience really is. However, intent of the therapist may not be fully acknowledged by the patients.

> Probably about 30min of fun until kids just start hitting each other as hard as they can with sticks.

BB gun fights were a regular feature of childhood where and when I grew up. I never took part myself - my mom had already instructed me in the correct use, care, and safe handling of actual firearms, for one thing, and for another I knew she'd take my own Daisy air gun away if she heard of me doing anything so foolish - but lots of kids I knew did, and regularly had the injuries to prove it. Their folks never fussed so far as I knew.

That was in the late 80s and early 90s. So I feel like in the 1920s kids hitting each other with sticks is going to be about 50% "builds character," and the balance "well, it'll help get them ready for the next war".

Former longtime adult Scout leader here (and Eagle Scout) -- you're absolutely right about the kids hitting each other

Hey, basket weaving and leather work were super fun, and I have all cool ones like shotgun, archery and rifle. The most boring are probably your citizenship badges. Don't knock it till you try it.

Safety was the most boring badge, and quite a bear too. Lots of memorization. It was required afaik too, at least back in the 90s. Had a reputation as blocking advancement to a higher rank, I think Life.

Oh damn, totally forgot about safety. That's probably telling.

Safety was dropped from the “required for Eagle” list in 1999

Oh I have the leather working merit badge, I loved it! The particulars of how to work with hide and stamp it was a neat arts-and-crafts activity that I hadn't realized.

Basket weaving was considered the slacker badge (for my troop at least) to work on during summer camp because it had 2 requirements and it generally took a day to complete. I was more interested in rock climbing / canoeing / forestry etc - we're in the wood for a week, why waste it?

I get it but when I took martial arts as a kid it didn’t devolve into a free-for-all so I guess it would depend on the effectiveness of the teacher to maintain order.

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