To the Boy Scouts of America, On Behalf Of A Scouting Family.

posted on 01/31/2013 by 4 Comments

 

This letter is being re-published here with the permission of Patrick Goodnow.

Patrick

Patrick

 

 

Email sent to the National Board of the BSA:

nationalsupportcenter@scouting.org

 


I was a registered scout from the age of 8 through 18 as were both my younger and older brothers. All three of us spent summers first attending and then working for our local scout camp, J.N. Webster. I achieved my Life badge and was inducted into the Order of the Arrow completing vigil and numerous service projects.

Mom, started as a cub scout leader and in the 70′s became one of the first women in America to complete advanced leadership training.
“Stand Up Rose” Goodnow became a district leader and was awarded the silver beaver on two occasions. Upon her passing, she was buried in her scouting uniform at her request.

Wally Goodnow, my dad served as scout master and on district committees, also earning a sliver beaver.

My bothers, Wallace and Paul-Steven Goodnow, both Eagle scouts, died tragically while still in their teens; Wallace, murdered in Jacksonville, FL before he was 20 and Paul-Steven in a single car accident driving late night to his job at J.N. Webster as dining hall steward. A plaque was erected memorializing them at the entrance to a campsite at the scout reservation.

I helped to home care Rose through her final illness and took my father Wallace into my home to see him through his, eventually holding his hand as he passed. They remained involved in scouting to the end.

Every five years I take a stand for my family and represent my brother Wallace and his memory at the parole board hearing for the unapologetic man who took his life.

I volunteer as a youth mentor and contribute my services to community and charitable projects often in the name of these family members who have passed.

I am a gay man. The lessons that I learned in scouting and the examples of service and fellowship have helped to make me a good man as well.

Two summers ago, I attended a reunion at J.N. Webster for past staff and campers.
I was greeted by one leader graciously and with much good cheer. Most others made it clear that though they would happily take my financial contribution, they would also prefer that I leave as quickly as possible.
- I was not welcome to assist with service and badly needed maintenance projects.
- My offer to provide assistance with fundraising and marketing (areas in which I have considerable expertise) was firmly rebuffed.
- I have now, apparently, been removed from contact lists for future social gatherings
- Though I asked, none would tell me where the plaque honoring my brothers was so I could pay my respects

I continue to contribute to my community and actively participate in many worthwhile organizations.
…but my heart is heavy when I think of what scouting was and what it has become.

On behalf of my scouting family and in their memory, please change this policy.

Allow your brothers to come home.

Patrick Goodnow
Norwich, CT

 

"Stand Up" Rose

“Stand Up” Rose

 

Dad Goofing

Wallace (Dad) being goofy

 

Wally 05

Wallace

 

PS 02

Paul-Steven

 

Sent from a friend.

Sent from a friend.

 

 

 

 

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8 Line Challenge – misplaced hair.

posted on 05/24/2012 by 6 Comments

The prompt is misplaced hair over in the 8 Line Challenge corner.

Who took the challenge this time around?

You probably know them.  You probably love them.

It’s Missy Bedell, known also as Literal Mom, and Jen Mitchell who writes at Buried With Children.

*DING*

 

Dear Misplace Hair.

I know your are there… he says he doesn’t care.

But I know, I’ve studied the area well.

Why are you there? Did you get jealous of the few on my head.

 I hate those too, you know. 

What to do? What to do?

Dye it, pluck it, shave it clean?

Shit! Does this mean more are coming?

Oh misplaced hair, I hate your new home right above my pubic bone.

 

Jen is the mother of triplets plus their big brother, who often feels that she is buried in children. Find her stories from under the pile on her blog Buried with Children  and follow her on Twitter @buriedwithkids.

 

 

***

 

Misplaced Hair

He shakes hands and introduces himself.

He notices that she notices.

They all notice.

Small talk is painful.

He excuses himself to the restroom.

When he walks in, he sees his hair, misplaced, sitting sideways.

What the hell, he thinks, and takes it off.

He goes back out to start over, but she’s already gone.

 

Missy Bedell blogs at Literal Mom, where she uses wit, humor and tears to encourage parents to think about their parenting.  She skydived in college, ran with the bulls after college and bungee jumped a couple of years ago.  You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

 

Thanks ladies.  The 8mm gap in my pubic bone is honored by your 8 lines.

 

* You can read the original 8 line series (written in my postpartum haze) here.  Look for more guests taking the 8 Line Challenge on the 8th, 16th, and 24th of the month.
posted in Guests, Life tagged with , , 6 Comments

8 Line Challenge – droplets.

posted on 05/16/2012 by 1 Comment

My pubic bone was split and left with an 8mm gap.

I began writing in only 8 lines for a month.

The 8 Line Challenge was born.

It’s time for another one.

Boom.

 

The prompt was – droplets.

Here are my guests:

Danielle Aubenque is an ex-theatrical, a poet, and a priestess.  Here’s what came out of her brain:

 

As So The Rains
Cyclical as the dance of rain
From tears to life to tears again

Globules of liquid flowing
Seeds of change always sowing

Thunderous roar to snuffing hush
Tin-pan crackles to sweaty flush

So like these droplets are we
Spinning through all seasons with ease

 

Danielle is a mother and not a blogger.  She prefers not to link to any online profiles, so you instead must bask in her mystery.

 

 

Kim Rullo is a mother, conceptual artist, disco dancer, conceptual transvestite, and lego architect.  Her brain streamed this out:

 

I exhaled towards the mirror as I prepped my station.

Droplets of my spittle lay on the glass a result.

“The third Tuesday of the month, the vilest of days,” I thought.

The last bottle of Black No. 9, she was coming in, and so are her
tiny, annoying roots.

I hate her smugness, her Twilight T-shirts, her pretense, her
condescending conversation based on unspeakable banality and post
pubescent narcissism.

I creak a smile through my pursed lips as she spouted on and on about
Nietzsche, Thom Yorke, Robert Smith, and others as if she had no idea
how boring, blasé, and tired her references were.

Droplets of blood pierced through my dry lips as I bit down, nodded,
and agreed halfheartedly.

Honey chestnut was her color… drip, drip, drip, through the nozzle;
blah, blah, blah, filled the air.

 

Kim blogs at Motherblue.

 

Thank you, ladies.  My pubic bone loves you.

 

* You can read the original 8 line series here.  Look for another 8 line challenge on the 8th, 16th, and 24th of the month.
posted in Guests, Life tagged with , , 1 Comment

8 Line Challenge – uphill.

posted on 05/08/2012 by 1 Comment

It’s the 8th of the month, folks – so time to honor my split pubic bone with the 8 Line Challenge.

Our challengers today are Christine who writes over at Love, Life, Surf, and Julie who writes at Zero to 140.6.

Here’s some interesting stuff about them:

Christine was a vegetarian until she got pregnant with her second child.  Then all she wanted was bacon and fried chicken.  She’s allergic to lentils and chick peas, so it’s probably for the best that the whole vegetarian thing didn’t work out.  She’s also a smarty pants and got ridiculously high scores on her MCATs.  She probably could’ve been a doctor, but she didn’t want to.  So there.

Julie started blogging to chronicle her training for an Ironman triathlon (her lifelong dream).  Then, last year she actually did it, so now… she just writes to write.  She continuously puts challenges in front of herself, and if there were a quadrathalon I’m sure she would be training for it.

Their prompt was:  uphill.

Here’s what came out of their brains:

 

Julie:

Tripod headstand
I’d mastered a new trick in yoga that morning: tripod headstand.
It takes a lot of shoulder and core strength to do it confidently in the center of the room.
So of course I showed everyone at my husband’s birthday party.
“Wow, you are amazing,” he said in a tone only I would understand as sarcasm.
“Wow,” my dad said. “Forty years old and still good at headstands.”
“Actually, I’m forty-one now,” I corrected, shoulders and core engaged.
“Yeah,” said my eleven-year-old. “When she was forty, she was still good at Ironmans.”
So now I don’t know if that’s progress or what.
Go visit her at Zero to 140.6.

 

 

Christine:

when i look in front of me, i can’t see the horizon
just a long strip of concrete stretching out in front of me, edging up to the sky
one foot forward but the slippery strip pulls backwards like a moving walkway
goddamn it
i grit my teeth, pull and claw
muscles tense and ache and sweat pours down
at the top, hands and head to the ground, butt up in the air, back arch
tumble tumble head over heels
You can also follow Christine on Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.

 

Thanks for playing, ladies.
Look for two more challengers on the 16th and 24th of the month.

 

*You can read the original 8 line series here.

posted in Guests, Life tagged with , 1 Comment

8 line challenge – brought to you by Daddy Runs a Lot.

posted on 04/16/2012 by 4 Comments

You know that kid in class who inevitably doesn’t understand the assignment, and then after you look at it again, you realize maybe he understood it after all, is really a genius and just found it too limiting?

Ladies and gentlemen I present to you John Batzer of The Adventures of Daddy Runs a Lot.

John took the 8 line challenge to honor my pubic bone.

He was to write 8 lines/sentences prompted by a title that I picked for him after poking around his website.

*****

TITLE:  Musical Mundane

 

I started playing the piano in kindergarten, because I demanded it of my parents, because my dad would play and I wanted to be more like him (honestly, it may mark the final occasion that I wanted to be more like him) and my mother actually found a piano teacher willing to take on a kindergarten kid

I quit piano lessons in the 8th grade, when I was taking lessons from a fancy-schmancy Russian piano teacher because I managed to be so busy that I couldn’t fit lessons into her schedule on a regular basis.  Upon quitting piano lessons, I actually started playing piano a whole lot more

 

I actually & truly admire Barry Manilow

 

I’ve written a song with the aid of one of my dogs . . . I was just having a hard time with how to start it, and he would stop acting up whenever I would play a certain passage, in a certain key, so that’s how I started the song

 

I name all of my musical instruments, except my keyboards.  I have no idea why I exclude those, but my very first string teacher (when I started playing ‘cello in the 4th grade) told me that I always needed to name my instruments, so I did.

 

I get as mad when people write ‘cello without the apostrophe at the beginning as I do when people misused the word enormity (the latter means something immensely evil, not something immense).  ’cello is short to violoncello, the full name of the instrument.

 

I really want a harpsichord, and a sitar.  Alas, I barely have enough money to get myself Starbucks once in awhile, and those are freaking expensive instruments

 

My father has a Steinway upright piano that plays beautifully — when he was young, his mother found it, in parts, in a junkyard and had someone put it back together . . . and when I say it plays beautifully, it really does . . . except if you’re doing a lot of playing in the upper register, where things just seem wonky,  This is because I, apparently, at a relatively young age, somehow managed to spill a bloody mary into the instrument while one of my dad’s friends was tuning it.  I still can’t put together the string of events as to how a toddler could have knocked a bloody mary into an upright piano, but I like to think that I was trying to drink said drink and decided it needed more Tabasco.

*****

 

At first I was confused as to why he didn’t stick to the eight line structure.  After another look, I saw that he gave me eight quatrains.

I also asked him to tell me three things that he would like people to know about him that they can’t find on his About Page.  I wanted to introduce him to you with some personal trivia.  He never gave me that information… unless of course he worked it into his 8 lines…

Heh.

Follow him on Twitter – @DaddyRunsALot

 

Look for more installments of the 8 line challenge on the 8th, 16th, and 24th of the coming months.  You can also read my 8 line series that started it all  here.

 

 

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