Boy-Scout ruminations

When I was 10 or 11, or whenever you were supposed to transition from Cub-Scouts.....
My father wanted me to join a local Boy-Scout troop established in our church.
My father was hyper-religious. That church was pretty much his doing.
It was Troop 140, an offshoot of our local Boy-Scout troop, #114.
It seemed to be a pack of rebellious ne’er-do-wells, disenchanted with 114 because it was such a do-gooder troop, kind of like Kiwanis or the local Lions Club.
140 had two rebels that were particularly evil, Charley Post and “Applegate.” I don’t remember Applegate’s first name, but it may have been “Tommy.”
Posty and Applegate left 114 because 140 had a Scoutmaster who was also evil. He let them get away with most anything.
I was in dreadful fear of Posty and Applegate. They were threatening me with initiation (gasp) on a camping-trip.
140 held camping-trips in the south-Jersey Pine-Barrens, and I didn’t go, fearing Posty and Applegate.
Initiation was to remove all one’s clothes, then submerge them in a creek or bog. I would be left stark-naked in the Pine-Barrens in the frigid cold.
Is it any wonder I didn’t go?
Much later 140 went along on another foray into the south-Jersey Pine-Barrens to sleep over in a log hunting-lodge.
Much as I didn’t wanna go, my father signed me up.
I hoped the presence of other Boy-Scout troops might temper Posty and Applegate.
Things went fairly well. I was instrumental in stocking our snow-fort with ammo for a giant snowball fight.
Posty thereby declared me initiated. He noted this while defecating pants-down in a bog.
So now I wonder if Posty and Applegate are still alive.
Both probably served in ‘Nam.
I didn’t, because I was “4-F.”
Both were slightly older than me, perhaps three years. Applegate was less fearsome.
My membership with Troop 140 didn’t go past 1957, when our family moved to northern DE. We thereby left my father’s church behind; but he was mad anyway, because they hired a replacement pastor without his approval while we were still there.

• RE: “4-F........” —The gumint had various classifications of suitability for the military-draft in effect back then. “4-F” was totally unsuited for military service, usually for health-reasons. In my case it was a duodenal-ulcer I developed in college. College-attendance was also a reason for draft-deferment; but after college, ‘Nam for you, baby!