Update 4/18/10: it seems that the Boy Scouts are celebrating their centennial year this week, which I didn’t realize when I wrote this post. Happy 100th!
One of my favorite books from younger days is the Scout Field Book — as in Boy Scouts, but way better than the Boy Scout Handbook. It’s basically oriented, as the name suggests, to hiking, camping, swimming, felling trees, tracking animals, identifying trees and more. As Bertie Wooster says of young blighted Edwin the Boy Scout, “They spoor, and creep about, and what not, don’t you know.” I pulled it down from the shelf today and got great nostalgic retro pleasure from leafing through it after many years.
The illustration shows how you tie a half-hitch. I’ve never forgotten how to do it after all these years. And a bowline, which allows you to make a loop that won’t slip. I still know how to tie both these, although I’ve never mastered the sheepshank.
cleve callison’s blog 
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