[March 11, 2013]    

You knew before entering the First Baptist Church basement on Saturday morning, you were in the right place for a good breakfast. The distinctively sweet aroma of pancakes grilling rose up the stairs and met you with promises of something good to come.

Inside, the friendly Boy Scouts of Troop 1102 were in full force, readily serving up a hearty flapjack breakfast and tending to customers' needs, as well as cleaning up.

Scouting provides character-building opportunities and lifelong memories and relationships, as modeled during the breakfast by troop master Ed Robinson and a surprise guest breakfaster, Jerry R.M. Lattimore.

Lattimore currently lives in Springfield and was in Lincoln on other business. He asked someone if they knew of any breakfast going on, and was steered to the church.

Left: Jerry R.M. Lattimore
visits with Troop 1102
Scoutmaster Ed Robinson
and Scouts.

 

Lattimore and Robinson enjoyably swapped National Scout Jamboree and other Scouting stories. They shared their great adventures with the younger charges, many of whom sport numerous badges of achievement that Lattimer pointed out and identified. The recognitions were honoring and appreciated by the younger Scouts.

Lattimore's first Jamboree was in 1957 at Valley Forge. At 70 years of age, he still enjoys engaging with Scouts wherever he goes and has had the pleasure to encounter other Scouts who were where he was when he was on Scouting expeditions; even recently meeting someone who had shared the same swim hole at his first Jamboree, which took place during a historic drought.

Dennis Willmert
is kept company
by Dylan Glick grilling
delicious pork patties.

 

Robinson's first Jamboree was in 1985 at Fort A.P. Hill, Va. That year was a bit exciting as thousands of Scouts were displaced by a historic Hurricane Bob, Robinson recalled.

The morning was another binding experience for the Scouts. It also demonstrated how Scouting crosses generations, and distances far and wide.