![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Writer's Block: Wild Life
Apr. 29th, 2009 12:46 am[Error: unknown template qotd] Not long at all. Maybe if I bought some survival guides or just borrowed the ones my dad probably has stowed away somewhere in the basement at home, but even though I can handle the cold pretty well and I'm probably underestimating my abilities, I don't think I'd survive for any more than a couple of weeks.
This reminds me of when I did Cub Scouts back in elementary school, where we didn't spend a lot of time camping or otherwise outdoors for that matter, but rather did a lot of crafts and games and activities (e.g. Pinewood Derby, etc.), a lot of which involved stuff out of our stupid guidebooks, which had a lot of faux-Native American "legends" and imagery and whatnot, and probably hadn't changed much since the 1950s. (When my dad was cubmaster for our school's group for a while, he largely disregarded the books and we generally did our own thing.) And the times we did go camping weren't all that enjoyable. In fact, you could say that about anything I did that involved being outside for long periods of time (Cub Scouts, Project Adventure, my geology class, etc.) -- my strong interest in environmental issues probably stems from all that time spent outdoors, but the fact that I am not a Nature Boy like, oh, 75% of the students at my college probably comes from that same fact.
I think I only dabbled in Boy Scouts for two weeks. That wasn't run by adults, but by middle and high school kids who didn't know what the fuck they were doing. After a while I had my dad take me to the library while my former compatriot "Tigers"/"Wolves"/"Bears"/"Webelos" ran around the outside of the school on a cold night in light clothing, and that was that. I remember thinking even Cub Scout meetings were a drag -- I did genuinely have fun on occasion, but I always thought the best part about it were the uniforms, which were pretty snazzy for elementary school-aged me (and might probably explain my slight uniform fetish -- great). But all in all, I don't remember all that much from that part of my life -- I might remember more whenever my dad brings up anything, and even then I have a hard time recalling some of what he says sometimes.
This question also reminded me of Into the Wild. The book and the movie were both awesome, but let's face it -- Chris McCandless was a total dipshit. (Same with Timothy Treadwell, subject of Grizzly Man, another of my favorite movies.)
This reminds me of when I did Cub Scouts back in elementary school, where we didn't spend a lot of time camping or otherwise outdoors for that matter, but rather did a lot of crafts and games and activities (e.g. Pinewood Derby, etc.), a lot of which involved stuff out of our stupid guidebooks, which had a lot of faux-Native American "legends" and imagery and whatnot, and probably hadn't changed much since the 1950s. (When my dad was cubmaster for our school's group for a while, he largely disregarded the books and we generally did our own thing.) And the times we did go camping weren't all that enjoyable. In fact, you could say that about anything I did that involved being outside for long periods of time (Cub Scouts, Project Adventure, my geology class, etc.) -- my strong interest in environmental issues probably stems from all that time spent outdoors, but the fact that I am not a Nature Boy like, oh, 75% of the students at my college probably comes from that same fact.
I think I only dabbled in Boy Scouts for two weeks. That wasn't run by adults, but by middle and high school kids who didn't know what the fuck they were doing. After a while I had my dad take me to the library while my former compatriot "Tigers"/"Wolves"/"Bears"/"Webelos" ran around the outside of the school on a cold night in light clothing, and that was that. I remember thinking even Cub Scout meetings were a drag -- I did genuinely have fun on occasion, but I always thought the best part about it were the uniforms, which were pretty snazzy for elementary school-aged me (and might probably explain my slight uniform fetish -- great). But all in all, I don't remember all that much from that part of my life -- I might remember more whenever my dad brings up anything, and even then I have a hard time recalling some of what he says sometimes.
This question also reminded me of Into the Wild. The book and the movie were both awesome, but let's face it -- Chris McCandless was a total dipshit. (Same with Timothy Treadwell, subject of Grizzly Man, another of my favorite movies.)
