Lassies and Lassoes

Postby LordNelson » Thu Mar 06, 2014 1:06 pm

At the tender age of five I returned home from my first day of school and of all the things I could have told my mother the one thing that had to be said first was “I’ve got a girl with red hair in my class!” A young lassie of Scots descent, Mary Jane McKinnon, was in my class. She was the first red head I had ever seen. Ever since that day I have had a partiality for the pretty pale freckled faces framed by flaming locks. Mary Jane and I were in the same primary class for nine years and then spent another five years at the same high school. While I was too shy to even attempt any sort of relationship my passion never faded over those years.

After high school she went away for university and I never saw her again. Since then there has been no shortage of red-heads in my life and even though they occasionally stir up old memories Mary Jane has been mostly forgotten. A few years ago I met an attractive cousin of Mary Jane who had a strong resemblance to her and I stupidly talked too much about Mary Jane instead of flattering the woman I was talking to. Not too smart.

Fast forward to yesterday. I do a lot of volunteer work with the Boys Scouts and Girl Guides Organizations. I also like to browse through vintage books. Over the years I have built up a collection of old handbooks from both organizations. Yesterday I discovered a book I didn’t even know existed. It’s called the Girl Guide Knot Book.

Boys Scouts seem to get all the attention for their ability to tie knots so I checked my shelf and found a Scout handbook called From Tenderfoot to Queen’s Scout which is about the same age, 1965, as the Girl Guide book which was published in 1968. I compared the two.

The Boys Scouts’ book has nine pages covering eight different knots and another page each for two lashings and two hitches for a total of thirteen pages.

The Girl Guides not only have a book devoted strictly to rope work but it has eighty-two pages covering about fifty knots, ten hitches and six lashings. Add to that two pages explaining the terms used, several pages demonstrating various other uses for rope and four blank pages for keeping notes and you have a grand total of eighty eight pages. Top it off with an illustration of a rope ball gag on the cover and you now know why Girl Guides have the edge over Boys Scouts when it comes to activities involving rope.

How does this involve Mary Jane? I looked inside the cover of the Guide book to find the date of publication and discovered that it had been printed in Glasgow Scotland. I’m not sure if a preference for TUG’s is something that can be passed on genetically or if it might be a cultural preference but I’m now wondering if the smooth opening line that eluded me all those years ago could have been replaced by a simple piece of rope.
Last edited by LordNelson on Sun May 17, 2015 1:55 pm, edited 6 times in total.

Re: Lassies and Lassoes

Postby viking » Sun Mar 23, 2014 10:55 am

since i'm also in the scout organization i have to admit i found this very interesting. i have been with the scouts now for almost 15 years and from personal experience the girls never had much about knots or the use of ropes in general. the only thing they have experience with is braiding and that is mostly because they use it for hair styling.

so the fact that the girl guides have a much bigger book than the boy scouts makes me curious how come the girls in the Norwegian scout groups doesn't learn anything about tying knots at all. every girl in my patrol complained several times about how they didn't know anything about tying knots, that was when i showed them how to tie about a dozen of them.
Once a scout, always a perverted pyromaniac with a fetish for knives and duct tape

Re: Lassies and Lassoes

Postby LordNelson » Sun Mar 23, 2014 11:48 am

Hello Viking

I was wondering if you were going to notice this story. I have been following your scouting stories.

In the Boys Scouts of Canada handbook from 1965 is a paragraph on the efforts the scouts made to send relief supplies to other scouts around the world during World War II. This is the picture that illustrated the page.

scouts.jpg


If you were to obtain some of the Girl Guides knot manuals not only would your girls be better at tying them but you would probably have a lot more stories to tell. Knots are like any other skill "practice makes perfect".

LordNelson

Re: Lassies and Lassoes

Postby viking » Sun Mar 23, 2014 1:42 pm

yeah it took me some time to notice.
to be fair, reading and sharing stories on this forum is not my main priority at the moment. i got work, scout meetings, band practice, and when i finally got the time i also have to be in the right mood. sometimes i might visit several times a week, and other times it could be many weeks between my visits.

what the f... Canadian scouts sent supplies to the Norwegian scouts? i knew there was a lot stuff going on during WW2, for an instance one of my scoutmasters once told me how her grandfather had hidden a bunch of scout uniforms in the attic as soon as he heard that the Germans where sent out to burn every scout uniform they could find. but i had no idea Canada sent supplies to us...

now if i had those manuals, i don't know if there would have been that many more stories to share though. i'm trying to make the scout meeting as serious as possible, wich means i usually try to avoid TUG's.
but i don't feel the need of any manuals to teach my scouts about knots either.
still, it could be interesting to read them. if there are 80 pages about knots and they are described in a certain amount of details then there should be something in there that i could learn.
Once a scout, always a perverted pyromaniac with a fetish for knives and duct tape