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Boy Scouts at Gettysburg circa 1913 performing the time-honored camp ritual of water bucket to the head. View full size. George Grantham Bain Collection.
The Boy Scouts were at Gettysburg acting as aides to the Civil War veterans.
Great-Uncle was one of those Scouts. He said he'd never seen so many old men missing arms and legs.
Remembering that was why he decided not to volunteer for combat when the U.S. got into the Great War a few years later.
Boo-hooeys aside, Dave, remember that it used to be considered good sport to smack one's wife around (you know the origin of the phrase "rule of thumb" don't you?) or get drunk and fight at bars, or lynch Negroes, or kill cows at abbatoirs with sledgehammer blows to the head. U.S. soldiers had been prosecuted in the early 1900s for giving the "Spanish water cure" (waterboarding) Huk rebels in the Phillipines. Makes me wonder whether [snip]
[Oh brother. - Dave]
It looks like everybody's having fun doesn't it? However, the picture doesn't show the face of the boy being picked on. Nor does it show what will be left inside of him when it's done.
Whoever thinks that this is just good clean fun and bemoans the abolition of hazing should watch the Youth Protection videos again.
If Youth Protection (the practice and reasons for it) still hasn't sunk in, then it's probably time to hang up your "Smokey Bear" hat.
[Boo-hooey. - Dave]
It makes me smile to think back to when a boy was expected to give and take roughhousing - the normal preparation for being a man.
It explains a great deal about (some of) the young men today who complain about the smallest of things...
I think the Boyscouts were founded in 1910, and they obviously thought getting buckets of water poured on their heads was great fun in those days. Just as in your amusement park photos where the people thought that getting violently thrown off a circular, moving floor and getting knocked down on their behinds was great sport, as was getting spun around in a vertical swirling vortex and landing on your knees was hilarious to them. Must not have been too much "out of bounds" behavior in those days which might explain why slapstick humor, i.e. Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy and others were considered hysterically funny. Today the lawsuits would bankrupt the scouts and the amusement parks. Such is progress. These scouts are a clean-cut group and they still are today. Nice photo.
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