My father also encouraged my love of nature. He urged me to become a Cub Scout, and later a Boy Scout, and I found I really liked being outdoors.
I will say that Edward Norton, who plays the scout master, would be a first-rate Eagle Scout. He's got all those techniques. If your plane crashes into the jungle somewhere, he would be the guy you would want to have with you.
Actually, as that first association continued, we got a little more legitimate. In those days, they asked Boy Scout troops to act as ushers during the football games. So we signed up and I went to many games in full Boy Scout uniform as an usher.
All the guys called the Olympic Village a high-class Boy Scout camp.
I was scouted by this talent scout back home. She found me because I used to make my dad these CDs of my music, and I think that some guy that he worked with had a niece who worked with the talent scout, or something really drawn out, kind of word-of-mouth.
I still remember the entire Boy Scout motto. I don't remember the serial number of my gun in the army. I don't remember the number of my locker in school. But I remember that Boy Scout code.
I actually like snakes! When I was young, I was a boy scout nature camp counselor, and one of our projects was collecting snakes and creating an environment for them, so I'm quite familiar with snakes and think they're fantastic creatures.
Being a Boy Scout saved my life. I was a bookish, introverted kid, shy and withdrawn, unhappy and easily bullied. I was also gay, although I didn't know it yet. I should've been miserable. But being a scout got me out of myself and into the world.
My brother Jim and I spent many wonderful summers working on dairy farms in Wisconsin owned by Mom's cousins, and as members of our local Boy Scout troop.
How did Mike Bibby get on the team? Any Cub Scout with Boy Scouts can do Boy Scoutish things. When Bibby was in the Cub Scouts, he was a Cub Scout. When he was with Vancouver, nobody heard about him. Now that he's with Sacramento... he's on the team. I ain't going.
Among my activities was membership in the Boy Scouts; I rose each year through the ranks, eventually achieving the rank of Eagle Scout and undertaking leadership roles in the organization.
I loved practical jokes. I loved being goofy on the playground, and I loved doing silly cartoons, but I was not this subversive little delinquent. I am an Eagle Scout, after all.
As a child, I tried to play by the rules. I got very good grades in school; I was an Eagle Scout; and I believed in all of it.
I used to mow grass and sell Christmas cards and shovel snow in order to raise the $25 to go to Boy Scout Camp in Osceola every year.
When I started on scout team, I wanted to be scout player of the week. So when I got that, it was, 'All right, what's the next goal?'
About guns, about hunting, it's safe to say I know nothing. The last gun I fired was a musket at Boy Scout camp.