Mondays….. my how you have changed! The years have certainly taken a toll on you. I no longer recognize you. You just ain’t the same Monday I once knew. But then neither am I the same bloke I once knew either.
Mondays are a ho-hum kind of day for me now that I have to dedicate my working hours to eking some kind of a living. But that wasn’t always so. Mondays used to actually be fun! Imagine that!
Monday nights once held a special appeal for me in the care-free days of my youth. For it was Monday nights that were the designated weekly meet nights in Bedford for the local Boy Scout troop 171! Of which I and my younger brother were proud members.
Even today, decades later, I can remember those troop meets with a great deal of fondness. When my brother and myself first donned the uniforms and started hanging out with the rest of the troop, we met down in the basement of the Bedford Methodist Church. It was a good spot to corral a restless gang of energetic boys with as little damage to city property as possible. We had ample space down there with the walls painted a nice Indian white that made our abode a bright and cozy hangout illuminated with the standard sixty watt incandescent bulbs that were in vogue back then. The walls were adorned with all sorts of instructional posters showcasing the various skills that was considered essential knowledge for the boy scout such as basic first aid, tree identification, and how to tie various knots. In the main area was the head table where our affable and trusty scoutmaster ruled the domain along with some of the higher ranking scouts who were trusted with various leadership positions and helped to do his bidding. Scattered here and there on the outskirst of the basement den were various tents and utilities packed and set out of the way which the troop used on camping trips and various functions.
I well remember my very first Monday meet night there as the topic of discussion that night was, interestingly enough, about snake bites and what to do if you were ever bitten by an upset copperhead. I learned that it took a surprising amount of time (ten hours or more if I recall correctly) for the venom to kill you. The budding naturalist in me was intrigued and fascinated by such ditherings. If there was more of this I sure wanted to stick around and learn about it. If I had been harboring doubts about this Boy Scout thing, then learning about snakebites sure roped me in. What else would we be learning? That sure sounded like more fun to my ears than learing about boring grammar and history and who was in love with who and the usual mess they dumped on us in school. I knew I was gonna like it here and all the fellow scouts that I would soon be calling my friends. That was the first Monday night of a great many more to come. Each and every one was a joy.
Since I grew up Monday nights just haven’t been the same.
