Lessons on the Trail With Troop 15, BSA

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Troop 15, Boy Scouts of America, met on Thursday nights at Kirkwood Presbyterian Church, on McCalla Avenue in Burlington. The church building was small, but there was an adequate meeting room in the basement, and more importantly, a grassy back area perfect for games of “Pitch Up and Smear.”

I can’t remember the objective of the game but it involved a football that was thrown into the air, with everyone scrambling to catch it. The lucky Scout was then susceptible to a “smearing” by the others unless he could get the ball to someone else. There must have been some kind of scoring system. Understandably, not everyone present wanted to participate.

Most of us were veterans of such neighborhood “games.” But one of the kids, who was not a Burlington resident, expressed an intellectual skepticism to the game’s “point.” His name was Richard and his dad would drop him off for the meetings. He lived in Park City, the next neighborhood to the west.

Afterward, we gathered in the church’s meeting room, with the scoutmaster, Jimmy Coppock, presiding. The church might have been modest, but thanks to Mr. Coppock, the troop enjoyed a certain prestige in the Great Smoky Mountain Council of the Scouts. Mr. Coppock, a postman by day, was a longtime fixture with the organization and holder of a Silver Beaver Award, one of Scouting’s top honors.

Though the meeting place was Presbyterian, the troop membership reflected the community, drawing from McCalla Avenue Baptist, across the street, from Burlington Methodist, a couple of blocks away, and from other churches in the area.

The troop shared ownership with another troop of a cabin on Chilhowee Mountain in the Smokies. The cabin—one long room with a porch that ran its entire length—was equipped with rustic bunk beds, a fireplace, and a wood-burning cook stove. A spring just above it on the mountain provided water. During warm weather we would spend three or four weekends there.

At that time, the late 1950s, that part of the mountain was serviced by a barely usable dirt road. At one point in the 1920s, we were told, on the Knoxville side of the peak, there had been a resort hotel called Dupont Springs. Sometimes we would hike up there and scout around its remains.

Our cabin was on the side facing Sevierville, about two-thirds of the way to the top. It was well off the dirt road, barely visible in the winter when the trees were bare. There was only one other usable cabin in the area, owned by the couple who had donated the land for the Scout facility.

The road, most of the time, was passable by car or truck, but we always hiked up, complaining most of the way, badgering Mr. Coppock with distance questions. No matter how many miles remained, his stock answer became a running joke. When asked how much farther, he always said: “Mile, mile and a half, 2 miles.”

Sometimes, those of us who were more experienced, who had his trust, would be allowed to hike up a creek, scrambling through the woods in an attempt to get to the cabin ahead of those using the road. Once, on a dare, Ray Merritt and I toted a watermelon, along with our usual gear, the entire 3 and 1/2 miles up the road. Mr. Coppock saw to it that we shared the melon with the others even though we pointed out that none of them had volunteered to help carry it.

Later, I figured out that I could lighten my load by simplifying my diet. The only food I carried was a package or two of wieners, a loaf of bread, and a jar of mustard. No cooking pans, no eating utensils. All I needed was a sharpened stick and a fire to make my hot dogs, which I ate for every meal. Mr. Coppock told me that though my thought process was admirable, I was a bad example for the younger boys.

But Mr. Coppock’s greatest lesson to us came about when the question of religion arose on one of the trips. I don’t remember how it began, but someone started talking about the difference between being a Baptist and being a Methodist or Presbyterian. Obviously, being dipped under the water was scarier than being sprinkled, so Baptist was a tougher religion. Or something like that.

Richard wasn’t participating in the argument, and someone finally asked him what religion he was. He simply said he wasn’t any of those. One of the kids pressed him, and Mr. Coppock then stepped in, explaining that Richard was Jewish and what that meant.

As I remember, there were a couple of shrugs and that was the end of it. We all took pride in the fact that Troop 15 had its own cabin in the mountains—something that most other troops did not have. But now, at least for a few of us, we had something else that set us apart, that made us even cooler: We had a Jewish member.

Chris Wohlwend's Restless Native addresses the characters and absurdities of Knoxville, as well as the lessons learned pursuing the newspaper trade during the tumult that was the 1960s. He spent 35 years working for newspapers and magazines in Miami, Charlotte, Louisville, Dallas, Kansas City, and Atlanta. As an editor, he was involved in winning several national awards. He returned to Knoxville in the late 1990s and now teaches journalism part-time at the University of Tennessee. His freelance pieces have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and numerous other publications.

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