New Stories

We have two new stories up, making two for Charles L. Sommers and two for SR2. We need tons more! If you'd like to start post(52)ing, click on the sign-up link above.

Anyone up for writing an introduction for any of the adventures pages (WR, Ski Trips, etc.)?

Post 52 Gets Paddled

Post 52's Sommers trek on the cover of Boy's Life Magazine, February 1972

center photo: Tom Carr and Drew Etter

The Post Room

From Mark McB:

Charles L. Sommers, 1971

Philmont 1950 & OA 1957 - Names?

Hi,

We need names for the guys in this photo. (Click on "comment") Following each photo are Mark McB's comments.

Philmont, 1950

"...the first and fourth from the left, top row, are the Atkinson brothers.  I think Olin is older than Lanham.  Richard McCollum (the younger) is the 2nd from left, middle row, and Charlie McCollum (the elder) is next to him, 3rd from left.  If memory serves, another Troop/Post member - Dick Winter - is also in the photo."

Nishkin Executive Council, 1957

"Interesting, to me, that the 7 Post members are all in full uniform and the two non-post members are not."

New Additions

Things are starting to happen with the site.

Mark McBride provided the most recent email list and sent in the story about the 1963 Somers trip (see Adventures > Sommers). Chris Callaway provided a letter that accompanied a history he was working on, along with some valuable comments about Post history.

Thanks to the email list, we were able to send out an eNews blast about the project (in the middle of the night, along with a couple of creative autocorrections). We've already received responses from a number of folks and are receiving more content.

Steve Cocanower sent in three PDFs: "t52 1994 summer camps", "t52 Jack Boyd Cookbook SC 1994" and "t52Getting started packet". He also has some content on floppies that we hope to get ahold of.

John Munson wondered if the menu item about our adventure with Sommers involved a woman named Suzanne (who would float the boat of many grizzled trekkers through the Quetico).

David Lang and Mike Thomas provided updates to their email addresses.

Bill Simon had some good questions about the site:

Why is it called the Post 52 History?  Although very active in Post activities, I had the impression Jack Boyd was more actively involved in Troops 21 and 52. 

– The site is a natural evolution of the Post 52 site and the Post is more or less the touchstone here. All the other content branches from that point, including important folk like Jack, as well as the feeder and sister units, the camps and so on. There is plenty of room under the troop section for as much Troop 52 content as GoDaddy's servers can handle.

What are the names of the individuals in the core group? 


– We've received a lot of input from Mark McBride and Chris Calloway. In addition, cudos to Mark for his generous contributed expense for the post52.org domain name and the site hosting.

Who is the curator / professional copy writer?

– Trey Yancy - creative director and marketing guy.

Feel free to comment below:

Welcome!

An Important Note from the Curator: Carpe Deim

submissions are already coming in - scroll down to view

In the film Dead Poets Society there is a scene in which the teacher takes a group of students to look at a display cabinet of school history – ancient trophies and photos of the young men who won them; young men with the whole wide world laid out before them. We look into the faces, seeing hints of their personalities in their eyes, their posture and expressions. And then we are informed that each and every one of them is now food for daffodils. The teacher has his students lean in and listen as he whispers the message of eternal youth: Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives glorious.

This may seem rather abstract and far removed from our lives, but upon reflection, we realize that  in Post 52 we have shared something truly marvelous and that we are the boys in those photographs. We also realize that of all the valuable things that we may have experienced in our lives, if we do not share them with others, they will one day simply vanish.

We lived through the golden era of the Scouting program – a time when the Scout-O-Rama drew more visitors than any other event in Fort Worth. It was a time when the OA rolls had more than 2,300 members and the Longhorn Council had what must have been 40,000 boys in Scouting. It was absolutely huge and our little corner of it was very, very special.

Those were amazing days and what we experienced through Scouting had a deep, permanent and extraordinarily valuable impact on our lives. This is what we, from the perspective of troop and post 52 and other units with a 52 connection, can share with future generations.

This blog represents a race against time and a race against the distractions of day to day life. We are as impermanent as anyone else and our time is limited. As the decades have passed we have in the process of passing as well: Michael Osbourne, Richard Lewis, Jack, Panda – and, sooner or later, all of us.

Let's make a record of our experience. Let's tell the generations what it was like. Between us, we have the tales of four generations – more than enough to create a truly fascinating, informative, entertaining, and touching narrative of our experiences as part of one of the most profound, yet little understood cultural phenomena in history. If we can generate enough content – if we can set aside the time and make the effort – we can create a really great record of our collective experience. And from this we can create an eBook that can be distributed freely and easily, seeding it in such a way that it will not vanish as everything on the Internet eventually vanishes, along with ourselves.

Are we up for this? Are we prepared to preserve this wonderful thing that we have experienced? I think that we are, so let's start posting – anedcotes, facts, photos and more. Every little thing is important, so let;s make the most of it.

As the teacher said, carpe diem. Let's seize the day, boys. Let's make this archive glorious.

A Great Shot From the Fifties

This was submitted by Mark McBride, who added, "One of my favorites from the 50's."

Another submission from Mark: 

Jack Boyd

Jack Boyd, 52 miles from Post, Texas.

The Post Room

A display of relics in the post room.