Flight of the Arrow - by Brent

Once, while living in Bountiful, I was called to be the Ward Scoutmaster.  I only had it for one year and I haven’t figured out if that was because I was doing so well at it and I couldn’t progress any further or if I was so bad and they had to get me out of there before I permanently damaged the young Cub Scouts.  This little story might tilt your view of scouting in one direction or the other.  Cub Scouts is very big on ceremony and our Ward was no different than any other.  One of the awards that a Cub Scout can earn is the Arrow of Light.  It really is a culminating award recognizing all of the accomplishments that a young boy has made as a Cub Scout.  It takes a lot of effort and hard work and we traditionally held a very nice award ceremony to celebrate the Scout’s achievement.  Part of our ceremony included the Scoutmaster shooting an arrow at a target and then presenting an arrow, to the Cub, with eagle feathers tied to the shaft representing various scout virtues.  

We had one young scout that was a difficult little fellow.  He was usually out of control, disruptive, and hard to handle.  With the help of his loving den mothers and leaders he had achieved the Arrow of Light and it was time for the big ceremony at Pack Meeting.  The stage was set and we were going to do it right.  We were meeting in the Primary Room as we usually did.  I had become pretty good at holding the bow about waste high and shooting at the target without aiming.  The target was a burlap wrapped, 4-foot by 4-foot, rigid foam.  I gave my speech building to a crescendo which culminated with something like, “As this arrow flies straight and true to the target so it represents the pathway of your life.  Go straight and true and remember the values of the Arrow of Light.”  Then I would let her fly.  How could anything go wrong?  On this night the arrow might have been guided by another force or just crappy shooting but either way it missed the target all together.   It is tough to miss a big target in the small Primary Room and it could have been a little dangerous for parents and scouts.  I hurried to gather the arrow and try again.  This time the arrow hit the target but the path for this boy was set.   He moved from our Ward shortly after this and I don’t know what ever happened to him.  I am not sure things turned out to good for him because it is hard to argue against the flight of the arrow.