Boy Scout Troop 325
By George Denise, Scoutmaster
A father and his son were out walking in the woods on a crisp winter morning. It had snowed lightly the night before, so there was thin blanket of snow on the ground.
As they walked, they came to a clearing in the woods. It was about a hundred yards across, and was untracked. The father stopped at the edge of the clearing and, pointing to a large oak tree on the far side, said to his son, "See that old oak tree over there?" (His son said that he did.) "I'll bet you I can walk a straighter line across this clearing to that old oak than you can."
His son responded as any good son would, "No way!"
At that, they were off. The son immediately began looking down at his feet, putting one step in front of the other, very carefully keeping as straight a line as he could. He would go along that way for a number of steps, look up, see that he was a little off, correct his path, and then continue very carefully placing one step in front of the other. He was sure he was going to win.
When they reached the oak tree, they both looked back. The son could see his tracks in the snow. They would go along fairly straight, but gradually veer off, then he could see where he corrected his path, then went a little farther, then corrected again, and so on. It looked pretty good, but there next to his path were his father's tracks. They made an almost perfectly straight path in one single line all the way across the field.
"Wow, how'd you do that?" the son asked.
"Well, son," the father answered, "while you were looking down at your feet looking at where you were, I kept my vision on our goal, the tree, and just walked straight toward it."
There are two lessons in this story: 1) When you are doing any kind of cross-country hiking using a compass, site with the compass the direction you want to go, then find a prominent object on that siting off in the distance to use as a reference as you hike toward it. Don't try to hike on that siting just looking at the compass, or you will have the same problem the boy had. 2) In life, it is good to set goals for yourself; the person who sets goals and keeps his sites set on accomplishing them is much more likely to realize those goals, and realize them sooner.
Be like the father in this story, not the boy. Set goals, keep your sites set on them, and succeed.
Thank you, and God be with you!