Tobacco

As a child, Fiorella watched a lot of old westerns on television so when she was in the third grade, a newcomer to North Waco Elementary School, she told the other students on the playground that the small chunk of chocolate her mother put in her Dale Evans lunch box each day was tobacco, and that she was biting off a chaw of it,  Enough students believed her--or thought she was crazy because they recognized the substance as chocolate--that they gave her wide berth.

And Fiorella wondered why she couldn't make friends.

Sex and the Scouts

I was catching up on the latest news and thinking that when I was a Scoutmaster, we, the adult leaders, never discussed sex with each other, partially because we didn't want the boys to overhear us, but mainly because we considered tobacco, alcohol, and sex talk to be inappropriate to bring along on camp-outs.

I really do not think having a gay Scout in a troop will make a lot of difference. The rules would continue to be the same for all boys, most of whom would continue to follow the rules, and Scoutmasters will continue to preach one Boy Scout value loudly and sincerely: TOLERANCE.

And the whisper in the background will be: "No choice."