Organizations dying out

[Doc Sharptail]

Back when we were kids, there were a few stories around.
Sea Cadets were supposed to have irregular access to m/g's.
My brother and I went down and checked out open night, and nary a m/g in sight.

I did join Air Cadets independently of my brother.
I did some pretty interesting things there- some of them involving DC-3's and the odd Piper Cub or two.
We had a handful of L/E Mark III trainers converted to .22 LR, all with broken or missing extractors.
There was one equipped with a Lyman peep that I could actually hit with~ back then, getting on the black at 25 yards was still a big fat hairy deal.
The jeweller's screw driver extractor got old pretty fast.
Our Squadron was actually an off-shoot of the Optimist's organization. They funded the whole works.

I have not seen the boy/girl scouts ads on T.V. for quite a while now.
Sea Cadets ran a T.V. ad campaign about 15 years ago that was fairly short lived, for just less than a year.

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

[dryheat]

Organizations. My dad joined the Elks. He even had an Elks tooth tie clasp. Moose, Lions Club. Was there ever and outfit called the Beavers? Or was that a joke? We went to picnics in the summer which was fun for a kid. Hot dogs and sodas. I remember one night in the winter we went to a get together and they were serving spaghetti and meatballs. I thought it was about the worst thing I'd ever eaten. Still remember that. A few years back I was in a small town I'd never been to and noticed a VFW (? I can't keep them straight) club. I walked in and it was basically a bar. One old guy was asleep on the bar and another guy asked me, what do you want? I said, I'd never been in and thought I'd check it out. I signed in had a beer and left.

[Allen]

Was there ever and outfit called the Beavers? Or was that a joke?

Maybe that was for women only?

[Vern Humphrey]

One thing I pick up on here is most of these organizations are where people go to drink or hang around.

The secret to the Knights of Columbus' success is that we DO things. We raise money for disaster relief, we send assistance where needed, we provide Crisis Pregnancy Centers with Ultrasound machines and so on.

One thing that always impressed me is a young girl who suspects she's pregnant coming to a Crisis Pregnancy Center and actually SEEING her baby's heart beat.

[Doc Sharptail]

Quote Originally Posted by dryheat View Post
Was there ever and outfit called the Beavers? Or was that a joke?

It was the earliest-age form of boy scouts here.

IIRC, ages 6-8 were Beavers

8-10 were Cubs

10-16 were Boy Scouts.

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

[blackhawknj]

The urbanization/suburbanization/motorization of the country in the 1920s made getting to social organizations and events easier. Didn't have to hitch up the horse to the buggy, plod into town at 3-4 miles an hour. Church services used to be "Sunday Meeting", if getting into town was such a chore you made a day of it.
Alumni associations in higher education seem to be fading away-many schools don't even publish yearbooks anymore. Students who have to rely too heavily on student loans, are day students have little or no loyalty to their "alma mater". Corporate alumni associations have also disappeared, one retiree from a company that for years had a good alumni association-news ,letter events, etc. said the bean counters took over . eliminated them, nowadays retirement consists of signing your papers, turning your ID card and parking sticker and closing the door behind you. Read accounts by NYPD retirees who noted no solidarity/camaraderie by those currently "On The Job", heard the same from military retirees, several had said they go on base, show their retirees ID, the attitude is "Eh!".

[kj47]

Our Masonic Lodge had 135 members 10 yrs ago, now we are down to 84 now. Some new members but not keeping up the numbers.

[Merc]

https://veteransbreakfastclub.org/about/

The Veterans Breakfast Club.

How many have heard of this organization? I’ve attended 2 meetings so far as a guest and was impressed. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and will probably join. The latest meeting was this morning. The venue is a church hall that seats several hundred and the place was packed. The veterans range from Afghanistan to WW2, both men and women with the majority being Vietnam era vets that includes me. It’s mostly about story telling because, after all, everyone has a story to tell about their time in the service. As you would guess, the WW2 vets are close to 100 and even the Korean vets are in their 90s. They won’t be around too much longer.

If listening to an old vet talk about the D Day landing or flying a B29 over Korea isn’t riveting enough, the guest speaker they had today was Rocky Bleier. Yes, that Rocky Bleier - the running back for the Steelers during their 4 Super Bowl years in the 1970s. The story he tells makes you laugh and cry at the same time. He was drafted twice. Once by the Steelers and once by Uncle Sam to fight in Vietnam. He overcame losing part of a foot to an exploding grenade to become a star in the NFL. Just when it looked like he might bleed to death, a huge black soldier picked him up, placed him over his shoulder and carried him several hundred feet through the rice paddies to a chopper and the medical attention he needed. Rocky didn’t know the soldier’s name and never saw him again. He undoubtedly makes a pretty good living these days as a motivational speaker. He may have been a star in the NFL, but today he was one of us.

[Allen]

Good post Merc.

[Vern Humphrey]

Well, I guess I have to tell a story. I'm a member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart. One of the guys in my chapter (since deceased) was a member of the 503 Parachute Infantry. They jumped onto The Rock, Corregidor. The drop zones, he said, would take an 8-man stick -- 8 paratroops chest to back, and when the light turned green, everyone out as quick as possible. If everything went right, the first man would land on one end of the drop zone, and the last man on the other.

But things don't always go right in combat, and when that happened someone was going into the water. The troopers were carrying about 150 lbs of equipment apiece -- flamethrowers, mortars, machineguns and so on. When a man saw himself headed for the water, he would cut away everything he could -- it was a matter of survival.

The Navy had PT boats circling the Rock, and when they saw a trooper headed for the water, they'd dash over and try to snag his parachute and pull him to the surface. When the drop ended, the PT boats were crammed with retching, gagging paratroopers. They were supposed to be taken to an aid station ashore.

But there is a beach at the foot of the Rock. The paratroops saw it and began yelling, "Land us there! Land us there!" The PT boats went in as close as they could, and the troopers wend over the side and waded ashore. As they approached the beach, they were wheeling and dealing -- many of them had no weapons, having cut away everything they had. As they came out of the water, the men still without weapons gathered up armloads of rocks. They fought their way into the fortress and cleared the first level in hand-to-hand fighting, then started up the stairs to the second level -- and met the rest of the regiment coming down.

A few years ago, there was a debate on some internet forum, "What is a man?"

When you meet a man who has made a parachute assault and an amphibious assault on the same morning, and fought his way into a Japanese fortress armed only with rocks -- you've met a REAL man.