Eagle Gift

Our latest Eagle scout had his ceremony this past Sunday. It was a practically perfect affair with many scouts involved with short lines, all correctly memorized. Everything went off without a hitch, including the 10-minute video of the scout's career, lighting of a table full of candles of all shapes and colors, and food and cake served afterwards. It was all really very nice.

For my part, as scoutmaster, I had way too much script to read but I plugged ahead. I'm used to a scoutmaster minute rather than a scoutmaster 5- or 10-minute. :-) But, it was fun.

As a gift for the Eagle, I whittled the troop numerals and the scout's initials into a fire piston kit. The stain I used made it too dark to see very well in the picture. The kit is from FirePistons.com and is a completely working fire piston ready to carve or finish however desired. My plan is to custom carve one for every new Eagle coming out of our troop.

In case you didn't know, a fire piston is a waaaaay cool way to demonstrate fire starting. With just air pressure, a bit of tinder ignites almost magically. It's more work than a BIC lighter, but a lot more fun and there's always a few scouts wanting to try it.

If you're looking for something interesting to get a scout advancing in rank or one that is in to fire, check out fire pistons. I'm hoping to improve my carving as I do more of them.

Scout On