This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America.

When a boy turns 11 they are offered the chance to join Boy Scouts. I couldn’t wait.

I turned 11 on Oct. 1, 1991. Joining Boy Scouts, in its own way, was a rite of very early manhood in my family on both parents’ sides.

Scouting meant a lot to my grandfather.

In 1929 my dad’s father was one of 14 scouts from Troop 45 who survived a flood while on a camping trip outside Rockwood Tenn. Seven scouts and a scoutmaster died in the flash flood.

The March 24, 1929 article was recently placed on the Internet:

“…At Tarwater, six miles south of Rockwood, a troop of 28 Boy Scouts was swept down White Creek on the roof of the bungalow where they had taken refuge as the water crept upon their camp.

“Mothers and fathers on the banks of the stream were reported to have stood by helplessly within earshot of the cries of their sons. Volunteers pursued the boys downstream in boats, brought overland from the Tennessee River. Some were rescued.…

“The 21 scouts and their scoutmaster went to the Tarwater bungalow last night. A cloudburst, which washed away the county bridge on the main highway at the Roane-Rhea county line tore down the cabin, breaking it into three pieces…”

My grandfather, Carl Mee (listed as “Carl Meg, Jr., who is badly scratched” in the article) recalled the story a few times to me in my youth.

Some of the boys ended up in trees, others clung to branches to avoid being swept away. My recollection from my grandfather’s story was that it all happened so fast that they barely had time to react.

Before I was old enough to begin scouting, “Big Carl” as we called him, had already instilled the Scout Motto in me: be prepared.

Maybe because of his tale of that tragic night, I studied well my own copy of the Boy Scout handbook before my first meeting. I had previously studied my uncles’ handbooks and field manuals on the many Saturday nights I spent at my mother’s parent’s house in Bay Minette.

Our first trip was to Cheaha, just on the other side of Lake Logan Martin.

I wasn’t as prepared as I thought when it came to my sleeping bag and the cold October nights atop Alabama’s highest point. My GI Joe sleeping bag (turned inside out to avoid being made fun of) wasn’t as warm as the one I ended up asking for the following Christmas.

Bay Minette’s Troop 78 was made up of the children of Baby Boomers. We were, for the most part, country boys; though I tried to deny this for several years after I left home.

We weren’t always the most behaved troop. You could say we were always striving to get the most out of scouting.

But Troop 78 turned out some pretty fine Eagle Scouts. I never made it to Eagle Scout rank, and I sometimes regret it.

Before I got into Boy Scouts I would occasionally rifle through Big Carl’s cigar box with his and my uncle’s scouting memorabilia in it. The box contained a few merit badges, an Order of the Arrow patch, a few Life patches and an Eagle Scout patch.

To someone else it might have been a box of patches and badges. To me it meant a lot more.

There are more things than I could put in this column that could convey my thoughts on scouting and what it can hold for a young man. But I’ll end with this, the Boy Scout Law, which I still live by:

“A Scout is: trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.”