Air Cadets 1

Let’s see, how old was I, anyway? Must have been about twelve. Eddie, a kid in some other class at school, asked me would I be interested in joining the Air Cadets?

“Air Cadets?” I asked.

“Air Cadets,” Eddie answered. “My father’s the leader.”

Now, this was an interesting prospect. After all, I was already a Boy Sprout. A badgeless sprout, true, but a sprout nonetheless. Why was I badgeless? Because our troop of sprouts was led by a man who resembled Alfalfa in Our Gang. I think it was Alfalfa. Always full of big ideas, but the execution…aye, there’s the rub. Not much in the way of execution. We were therefore known throughout the city as the Alfalfa Sprouts. Troop 41.

Never learned how to tie knots. Except the ones in my stomach before asking a girl to the dance.

Never learned semaphore. No, that’s not true. I learned the alphabet in semaphore. A…B…C…all the way to Z. Unfortunately, I only knew the movements in sequence. A…then B…then C. I couldn’t spell a word. Cat? Not likely. Antidisestablishmentarianism! Forget it. Please inform the captain that little Johnny zipped himself up in his sleeping bag and now the zipper’s stuck and he’s trapped in there…Messages such as this would certainly have to be conveyed by smoke signals. Semaphore was beyond me.

Barely learned how to pitch a tent. Nowadays I’m better off pitching it in the lake.

Orienteering? Read a compass? Build a campfire? Shinny across the river by means of ropes? Nada. The one weekend I spent at Sprout Camp, I nearly puked over the runny scrambled eggs.

I did manage to learn the salute…three fingers poked in my eye, or something like that.