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I was very active in the Boy Scouts during the 1970s. It was life-changing for me. Raised as a city kid, it provided me my first real outdoors experiences such as camping, hiking, canoeing, etc. Back then we were allowed (rather expected) to carry pocket knives and know how to use them. Just a great experience all around and the scoutmasters were very dedicated. My last summer as a scout, I volunteered to be a camp counselor and spent six weeks straight at summer camp.

When I put my own boys through it during the late 1990s - early 2000s, it was not the same Scouts I went through. For one, pocket knives were strictly prohibited. Every activity was dumbed down and made "super safe" - parents were encouraged or even mandated to chaperone their sons on outside activities, including camping. Which was mostly the moms because the dads typically had to be at work.

After a couple years, my sons got bored with the whole experience and I pulled them out. I don't blame them one bit.

As an aside, my sister was in the Girl Scout program during the 1970s and that was a good experience for her as well. Even they did the whole camping thing - it wasn't just making brownies and selling cookies, that's for sure. I never understood why being a girl scout had such a stigma to it later on to the point where they rolled them into the boy scouts. Those girls scouts of the 1970s would outperform the typical boys of today in just about any outdoor activity.