PROMOTING SCOUTING: MY NEW MISSION BEGINS

Some time ago, I made a decision to feature Boy Scout characters in my first novel, VIOLENT NIGHT. Now that I’m about to release my second book, HAUNTED CAMPS: The Campfire Stories of Scoutmaster B.C. Justice, I’m confronting the need to build an Internet presence.

So I set up a MySpace page. Talk about swimming in shark-infested waters! It’s like Las Vegas the time we took Scouts there (I’ll detail that in another entry)—a den of vice and filth. I searched for the keyword “Scout” and found a hoard of entries putting down the B.S.A. as well as the leaders and boys who participate in it. Page after page. It’s discouraging. But I bravely put up my profile anyway. Although I put that I am there for friends and networking, what I get is friend requests from women trolling for a date. Did they look at that mug on my profile? (Likely not.) Anyway, now I could “search for a friend” by looking for people with Scouts in their profile. I found ONE. It was ME!

I haven’t seen any television advertising for the Boy Scouts since that one with delinquents trashing an alley back in the ‘60s. It’s up to us to build the image of our program. So I am making it my personal mission to publish entertaining stories about Boy Scouting—in my books, on this blog, on other people’s blogs, and MySpace, too.

By the way, putting your profile on MySpace is free. It’s kind of lonely being the only Scouter in there. I could use a few Scouting friends to help spread the message—especially to that young MySpace crowd—that Scouting is about making a difference instead of wasting your life!