Eagle Scout Court of Honor

I spent most of yesterday with my father, which I normally don't get to do so that was nice. We first went to Best Buy to get him a new computer. His computer is a piece of garbage, and now that my sister has moved out and removed his profile from her computer, he can barely even check his email. It's time anyway. The poor guy has had hand-me-down computers since our first Gateway died.

So, I went to Best Buy last week to price out some deals, and things looked good. We got there, and all of the displays were still up. Some of the prices changed a bit, but in our favor. Hooray! No. The "sales guy," we'll call him Chet, came over and saw what we were looking at and told us he wasn't sure about inventory. "Things are screwed up," Chet said, "because the vendors don't want to ship computers with Windows Vista on it and then let you upgrade to Windows 7. They want to just ship them with Windows 7."

Now this clearly falls under the "not my problem" heading, but apparently it was our problem. On planet earth, when you're a salesperson making a commission, it's your job to get the sale done no matter what. We gave him every opportunity. The first computer he had, but didn't have the monitor. We asked for a different monitor and he just dismissed the request. The other computer he didn't have at all, but said they usually get shipments in on Tuesdays (we're there on a Wednesday, so WTF?), and Thursdays. My father says, "Can I pay for the package now, and then pick it up?" He was GIVING the guy money...making this sale happen, but Chet had none of it. My father then said, "Can I give you my number and you can call me when they come in and we'll come right down and get it?" Chet started to say that WE could call HIM on Thursday or Friday when my father had enough, turned around, and walked away.

Best Buy people: when someone wants to buy something from you, figure it out. If you can't, get your manager. Don't let people walk out of your store. He didn't even try to sell us something they had in stock!

That has nothing to do with an Eagle Court of honor, but Best Buy gets my MORON OF THE DAY award.

Following our excursion to not buy a computer, we returned to Northeast Philadelphia where my father, the Scoutmaster of Troop 460 at Our Lady of Calvary Church, had to prepare for a court of honor that night.

For the uninitiated, a court of honor is a ceremony held by troops to honor scouts who have earned badges, ranks, and other fun stuff. 460 holds one twice a year...once around Christmas and the other in September. The September one is the big one, because all the kids went to summer camp and worked on merit badges there, so now they get to stand, uncomfortably, in front of all the kids and parents while my dad says how awesome they are. It's every kid's dream.

I remember quite a few of my courts of honor. Of course the big one, the special one, is if you should attain scouting's highest rank, the rank of Eagle Scout.

I earned my Eagle in 1995. I was a senior in high school and very distracted by all of the other activities I was in. From 6th until 9th grade, there was nothing in the world that mattered more to me than scouting. I studied hard, worked hard, learned a lot, ran for leadership positions, served in leadership positions. I even spent half of the summer after my freshman year at Ryan working at Treasure Island summer camp.

Then came band. The thing about scouting is that there's only guys in it...and most of them you see in school and hang out with all of the time anyway. It's guy overload...especially at that age. In band...there were GIRLS! Few, if any, had any interest in me...but it was the idea that one of them possibly, maybe could tolerate me long enough to smile and say "hi" that distracted me from other things that were important...like scouting.

But, I didn't quit. Yes, my father was my scoutmaster, and that's probably part of the reason why I didn't quit. It wasn't like he forbade me to quit or that he made me go to meetings or anything like that. In fact, during the marching band season we rehearsed Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday...so in high school it was difficult for me to get to our Wednesday night meetings from September to mid-November. In fact, my father was so hands off with me that it took new kids a while to make the connection that he was my father. At scouts, he wasn't my father. He wanted everything to seem fair to the other kids, so he over-corrected and went out of his way NOT to act like my father most of the time. But, I think that part of the reason I didn't quit was because he was a scout and only achieved the rank of Star. Yet here he was, back in scouting again after all of these years. Scouting was a big deal in my dad's family, and for the most part it was a big deal to me too. I wanted to make him and my family proud by going all the way and achieving what only my Uncle Joe Kilian did...make Eagle.

I had a history of sinus issues when I was a kid, and to make a long story short it all came to a head in January of 1992 (freshman year of HS) when my skull ruptured and a huge abscess formed in my left frontal and ethmoid sinus. Eventually, the pressure broke through my orbital bone and I began leaking cerebrospinal fluid (yeah, brain fluid) out of my eye socket. They didn't catch the big problem (holes in my head) until I was on the table in surgery. By that point, they had a big problem on their hands and they had to do all sorts of mean, nasty things that I've never really learned too much about because it makes me ill. I spent the next week or so (I don't remember because I kind of lost track of time) in intensive care with a catheter in my back draining fluid into a bag. I couldn't sit up. I received my last rights twice. It's a much more involved story, and there's a lot of back story and detail that goes along with it, including some of the events that happened the next few years...but I digress.

Why do I bring this up? Well, at the end of my second stay in the hospital for all of this, a doctor very nervously told me that I could no longer play wind instruments again...ever. Of course, I was wearing a "Sax Power" t-shirt at the time, and my mom was crying. Wonderful. This shattered my world, and I really had no idea what to do at that point.

I threw myself back into scouting. It was that following summer that I worked at Treasure Island. I became re-energized, and the whole event gave me a little more perspective on life than most 14 year olds tend to have. This was the catalyst behind me attaining Life rank, the rank just before Eagle.

The next year I spent more time in the hospital. It was a different hospital for different reasons, but no less traumatic, painful, or meaningful as far as the grand scope of my life is concerned. By this point I had received a second opinion on the wind instrument thing, and I was able to play....and play I did. Just as I had re-dedicated myself to scouting, when I was told that I could play again I didn't stop playing for 3 years. The saxophone became my life. My very identity was tied to that horn. They allowed me to play in the hospital, and it was a huge part of my recovery. I became a musician in the walls of that hospital and I developed a deep spirituality and closeness with God that is directly tied and completely inseparable from music.

Scouting took a back seat. I played in every available ensemble at school. I practiced long hours at home and at school. I would skip most of my lunch period to practice, and I would spend a couple hours after school in the band room playing. I fingered parts on a pen when I worked at the movie theater. Even if I couldn't physically play at work, I could still work on something...I could still get better. Every waking moment was an opportunity to improve.

My father stepped in around my senior year and was able to put aside his scoutmaster facade and really start working with me to focus and get my Eagle service project done. My mother was on board as well and she really pushed me in times when I wanted to play. My parents, like many Eagle Scout's parents, were instrumental in pushing me across the finish line. It was probably the last thing they really worked on together, because just a few months after I received my Eagle award at my Eagle Scout Court of Honor my parents split up and eventually divorced.

Last night, following the usual court of honor, they had an Eagle Court of Honor. It's a little unorthodox to have one in the context of a troop meeting or court of honor. They're usually a bigger deal, held in the church with friends and family, followed by a reception or something like that. For lots of reasons, that wasn't the case with this young man, and so they did it last night. I went, and I was able to participate in the event. I shared some readings in the ceremony with several other Eagle Scouts who were present, and we were able to be a part of this young man's moment.

Reading through the Eagle Pledge, and the Eagle Charge made me tear up. Seeing the banner that hangs in Calvary's gym with all of the Eagles in 460 since they were chartered in 1966...and there's my name...made me tear up. Wearing my Eagle Scout ring and shaking the hand of this new Eagle Scout made me emotional. It all brought me back to my moment, about 14 years ago, when I pinned my mom with the Eagle Mother's Pin and gave my dad his Eagle Father's tie tack.

It made me think of the camping trips with Matt and Sal, going on hikes singing Billy Joel songs to keep our minds occupied and keep the pace up. I thought about complaining to my first scoutmaster, Mr. Straub, as a young scouter on his second camping trip in 1989 that the patrol leader was just telling us what to do...and thus learning what the term "delegating" means. I thought about all of the great scouts that I joined with or soon before, and how few of them made it to Eagle. I looked at my current situation in life and was able to look at it in the context of the whole of my life, and wondered what lessons I learned on my Trail to Eagle could help me today.

Eagle Scouts aren't perfect people. Your Eagle badge doesn't mean that you're going to be a doctor or a lawyer and have a great life. Sure, that happens for some...but for others of us, the lessons we learned on the Trail to Eagle are meant to help us through the difficult times by teaching us about work ethic, integrity, and honesty.

I'm again humbled by the accomplishment. I used to think that perhaps I didn't deserve it because my parents had to get involved and push me to finish. I had to ask for help...and when I didn't ask, they helped me anyway. But now I realize that doing it yourself is great, but it takes a lot for someone to admit they can't do it on their own and ask for help. It takes an even bigger person to recognize that someone is losing their way and reach out to help them. For me, my Eagle Scout award is shared fully with my parents.

Scouting has come under attack in the last 15 years or so for lots of reasons, some legitimate (like pedophiles) and some not (like the stupid City of Philadelphia trying to kick them out of a building downtown that the scouts built). There was the whole thing with the National office declaring that scouting is a religious based organization and has the right to refuse homosexuals. I've heard it all...but none of that stuff ever has to do with the kids. It's about the kids.

Scouting is about kids learning to be men, learning to be responsible American citizens, learning self reliance, self esteem, and the importance of hard work. Scouting isn't about adults making rules and writing memos and fighting over buildings. Scouting is one of the most worthwhile activities for a young boy that I can think of. Any organization that works so hard for the betterment of the youth of this country should be revered. Don't blame the scouting movement or kids in uniform for what the adults do or say. I've run across this in every activity I've been apart of, especially band...when parents forget WHY they're there...for the kids...and start exaggerating their importance in the whole thing...everything gets screwed up.

So, that's part of my Eagle story. There are so many layers to this, I could write a book (I almost have with the length of this post), but it probably wouldn't mean anything to anyone but me and maybe my kids. It just feels good to talk about this stuff...organize my thoughts and talk about something that means a lot to me, whether anyone ever reads this or not.