From Phil Whittle (SC collector now serving in Afghanistan)…
There are a lot of rumors flying around South Carolina right now concerning the merging of several councils with Palmetto and Pee Dee being the main targets. They want to split Palmetto between Mecklenburg County Council and Blue Ridge or just merge all of Palmetto with Blue Ridge. The other plan is to merge Pee Dee with Indian Waters.

There was a meeting in Columbia (the state capital, centrally located, and the headquarters city for Indian Waters) on Thursday night January 8. I read that representatives from the Southern Region region in Atlanta presented this plan to 5 volunteers from each of the 5 councils attending (Pee Dee, Palmetto, Indian Waters, Blue Ridge, and Coastal Carolina).

Palmetto seems to be in the biggest danger with Pee Dee coming in 2nd place.

I imagine there are other councils going through the same situation.

Regards,

Phil Whittle

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The year is 1903…one hundred years ago. What a difference a century makes!

Here are some of the U.S. statistics for 1903:

• The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.
• Only 14 Percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.
• Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
• A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
• There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.
• The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
• Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the 21st-most populous state in the Union.
• The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
• The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents an hour.
• The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
• A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
• More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at home.
• Ninety percent of all U.S. physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as “substandard.”
• Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
  Coffee cost fifteen cents a pound.
• Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
• Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason.
• The five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:
  1. Pneumonia and influenza
  2. Tuberculosis
  3. Diarrhea
  4. Heart disease
  5. Stroke
• The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.
• The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was 30.
• Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn’t been invented.
• There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
• One in ten U.S. adults couldn’t read or write. Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated high school.
• Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, “Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and the bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.”
• 18 percent of households in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic.
• There were only about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.

And I stole this from someone else without typing it myself, and sent it to a dozen people in a matter of seconds!

Just think what it will be like in another 100 years. It boggles the mind.

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Got this in from Marlin Moore and Roger Schustereit. It is great to get this kind of documentation at the time it happens with respect to a lodge’s first flap. Here’s what they found out:
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More evidence that Charter Member flap is NOT the First Flap. At least that’s a good thing. www, roger

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I was also at the Texas Trails office today and I asked about the charter flap–it has been ordered, but it has not yet come in.

For you CSP collectors, the council announced in a newsletter that the three CSP/person/year restriction would be lifted in 2004. But not yet–seems the executive committee has not yet met to approve this policy change. Thus, for now it is the same as before: the first three@$3.50 for council members, $10 for every CSP purchased beyond the initial three and $10 for out-of-council folks.

The remaining stock of Kotso 330 flaps are to be sold until exhausted. No decision yet on other items such as the dance team patch, etc.

WWW,

Marlin K. Moore
Abilene, TX

I talked to the Abilene, TX, office about the new Penateka (561) flaps. They are limited to 5 patches per member per year. Don’t know how long this restriction will last, but Texas Trails Council is not trader friendly. I was able to get 1 Ordeal, 1 Brotherhood, and 3 Vigils. I could have gotten 5 Vigils. Didn’t ask about the availibility of the 1/life Charter member flap.

roger

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I am finishing up my term as Council President. The following is from an article I wrote for our council newspaper:

I want to discuss with you something you may know but may not have thought much about. Namely, that Scouting is not something boys just do, but something they are.

Boys may play baseball. Boys may play soccer. But boys in Scouting ARE Scouts. 24/7 – 365 days a year.

Being a Scout is not something a boy turns off at the end of his Scout meeting. Sports have seasons. Scouting is year round. Even if a boy is off playing a sport, the Scouts are still meeting. The Scouts will be there when they are done with their season. All the time they are playing they are still Scouts. When in school, at home, on a job – they are Scouts.

The Scout Oath and Law

How many times in a Scout’s life will he say the Scout Oath and Law? 100 times? 1000? More?
The Scout Oath is only forty words.

On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law. To help other people at all times. To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.

The Scout Law is just fifteen words. But what fifteen words they are.
A Scout IS:
Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful…

Our Scouts know the rest. They are the rest. These are timeless words that will be with them their entire lives.

The Scout Motto is “Be prepared!” For those who were Cub Scouts they also lived by their motto: “Do your best!” Both pretty good mottos I think most agree. The Scout Slogan is “Do a good turn daily.” These statements are said on a regular basis by our Council’s Scouts and 3 million others. They are lived by on a regular basis by today’s Scouts and the 90 million Scouting alumni that preceded them. This is what really makes us Scouts.

We should not find it surprising that after 9/11 Scouts are one of the re-occurring symbols of what’s right in America and the prospect for a positive future. You chose for your child to be a Scout. It is something they are, not just something they do.

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Sitting here and cataloging some new listings and just handled this item. 126 has always been a great lodge to me. Except for their 1990 issues, just prior to merging, everything from this lodge was tough. I remember when I started collecting in the early 1970s that any of the flaps from there were hard to find and even harder to trade for. This patch is the R2 which is much harder than their first issue, the R1 (differences are in the face and headress.)

Destry in our office is from lodge 240 which was in the same section with 126. This got us to talking about how patch availability and demand has changed over time. In the 1940s, many of these southern Illinois towns were much bigger than they are today. He said that 240 sent 4 troops to the 1950 National Jamboree! The 126 items are not necessarily commanding the prices that their scarcity would indicate in part because the area is not as populated today. This is the opposite situation as the early items from Florida, California, Nevada, Washington DC. Think about it. The population of these areas was MUCH smaller in the 1940s and 1950s (particularly before air conditioning). Now they are some of the fastest growing areas in the country and Scouting is following the population growth.

A little bit of a reverse situation, where a newer item is harder than the older items is the 123 fully-embroidered rounds. . Hal Rudd was a long time lodge advisor and very active trader in the 1950s through the 1960s but the solid rounds came out at the end of his really active trading tenure. Also, when the twills came out, that was all the lodge had. The fully embroidered pieces came out well after they had been issuing flaps and odd-shapes had lost their luster. Still, try to find some of these and you can look for a long time. They are even harder to find on some of the lodge neckerchiefs.

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Happy New Year!
🙂

As we start the new year, we went over the 30,000 mark of positive feedbacks on eBay. During the year we offered over 15,000 items on eBay in our efforts to serve our collecting community. Thank you for helping us be so successful.

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