Monday "link em up"

Re: Monday "link em up"

What "ties" them all together is actually a thin leather thong.

Fred Nelson

"Baden's Brazen Bobwhites"

Course C-8l-94

Yup.

Re: Monday answer

That�s what I�m talk�in about! Frederick got it. I liked the thong reference�no giveaway there. The item is the boy scouts Wood Badge. That badge is earned by scout adults who go through training in the tasks to be a senior scout leader. It consists of two wood toggles suspended on a leather thong (You can earn up to six toggle beads, but two is considered a great achievement.) It is also provided with a portion of a dove gray tartan neckerchief from the Maclaren Clan and that comes from the Wm. Maclaren who donated the land for Gilwell Park the original indoor and outdoor training facility outside of London. Both become part of the uniform and indicate the very cream of the crop in Scout leadership. The Wood badge original comes from Dinizulu, a Zulu warrior who wore a twelve foot long strand of Acacia beads when fighting the British in Africa. He led his people and the Boer farmers to stand toe to toe with the best fighting force in the world at that time. Through happenstance Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell (no relation) who had access to that necklace gave the leadership of the British Boy Scouts several of the beads to represent leadership during the first of these training events.

Working your ticket comes from the British Army where officers assigned to duty in India eventually had to get back to England and well, they had to pay their own way. The smart officers took a series of short assignments across the mid east to get closer and closer to England where the cost of getting back would not be so great. For the Wood Badge selections each man has to develop a project within scouting ideals. They call this the "ticket". This they do to develop a custom practicality of being a leader. Each ticket is different for each individual and each is a sort of graduate program in the scout organization. As each progress through the standard courses of the �curriculum�, they also �work their ticket.� The Tyrannosaurus Rex footprint is kind of a red herring. That�s because the Wood Badge training is now international and in the United States the training facility for the Wood Badge is in Cimarron, New Mexico, and on that property are where the only substantiated footprints of the giant lizard are located.

Lots of stuff to look into if you want. Anglo-Zulu war, Scouting, working your ticket,