My First Hundred Years. Donald R. Fletcher

Edna, a freshman, was, I think, fourteen, or near to that. Physically, she was precocious, with the full figure of a girl three or four years older than she was. She was accustomed to being the center of boys’ attention—and to dealing with that.

      There was a boy my age, a junior, whose name also was Archie. My brother Archie, and Elsie, too, had graduated and gone to the US to college, while I was now on the top rung of the ladder, a senior. Archie proved to be my intense rival for Edna. He was rather handsome, which I was not; although he was not a good student, which I was. Edna played us off against each other, keeping both of us on her string. I was alternately elated and plunged in gloom. She would let me feel that she really enjoyed being with me, then would be talking and laughing with Archie, leaving me on the outside.

      As the year ended, though, I felt that Edna was closer to me. I went off to college, taking her picture with me, an enlargement that I framed and kept on the wall of my room for a year, although I didn’t hear anything more from her. Korea was far away, certainly in terms of correspondence. With my new life, a nostalgic idealization was enough—until that, too, began to fade.

      With Bea, in time, there was a sort of revival. We made contact again, through another high-school friend. I was now engrossed in English studies at Princeton and was experimenting seriously with writing poetry. In one brief message, Bea wrote that she believed in me. That gave me a lift, and the theme of a lyric poem. Later, in my senior year, I made Bea an impulsive, quixotic proposal of marriage.

      There was a Christian summer-conference center outside of Asheville, North Carolina, that my siblings and I had contact with and where we spent most of the summer of 1938. The center, called Ben Lippen, had a large, reconstructed building on a hilltop, and there was talk that summer about putting it to use during the school year by establishing an academy for boys. I naively thought that I could make a strong bid to be named principal or headmaster of the school.

      It was my senior year at Princeton. Having a strong academic record, I wanted to try for a Rhodes Scholarship. Because my dad’s three brothers and his sister all lived in Nebraska, he considered that his home state. As I had no home elsewhere in the United States, I was going to make my application from Nebraska, traveling out there during my winter vacation for an interview.

      The trip to Nebraska by Greyhound bus would take me through Wooster, Ohio, and I knew that Bea was a student at Wooster College and living with her family there that year. What more natural than to arrange a stopover and a date with her?

      We borrowed the family car and went for a drive. It was dream-like to be seeing Bea again and talking with her. I told her about Ben Lippen and the plans for the boys’ school, and I proposed to her. We could begin a life together, serving in the new school. Would she do that?

      It was quixotic, a completely imaginative proposal. Bea had her feet on the ground, much better than I. Her answer wasn’t brusque, but it was clear enough; no. She knew me, even though we had been going our separate ways since graduating from PYFS. She told me how she had stayed in China for a year after graduation, and how she formed a close relationship with an American sailor in that place and time. These things are real, as she pointed out, but they pass.

      We drove back to her house and, later that night, I was again on my way to Nebraska. As a footnote, my bid for a Rhodes was also unsuccessful.

      *****

      Let me turn back to PYFS and to a different memory from that time. We had a Boy Scout troop there. Its organizing scoutmaster, Mr. Shaw, was a strong figure, a missionary stationed in Pyongyang who had been in France in World War I—in the mud, gore, and gas attacks of the trenches. He wouldn’t talk much about it, although he did collaborate, one year, as adviser for an original school play that had some dramatic, poignant war scenes. I don’t know what rank he held in the Army—he had left that behind—but he was an excellent scoutmaster, using his free time and a blend of genial kindness and strict discipline to train us.

      I was in eighth grade, as I remember it, when I started out as a Tenderfoot. Here was a ladder to be climbed. I worked my way up, passing each test, learning what needed to be learned, to arrive at First Class rank. Mr. Shaw made sure that the induction ceremony for First Class, held in the living room of his home, was solemn. A board held twelve candles, which the candidate was to light, one by one, as he recited the twelve Scout Laws.

      This was a supreme moment for me, and I was approaching the final law. Then, suddenly, the room went dark. When I could see again, I was on a couch, looking at the ceiling and at Scoutmaster Shaw. He had seen the instant when I had started to faint. The room was warm; I had skipped dinner to be ready on time; and I was looking down at all those lighted candles. He moved so quickly that he caught me, before I would have gone, face down, on top of them.

      Mr. Shaw did not continue with the scout troop, but Mr. Chandler, a teacher in our school, took it up. As we Scouts moved up in high school and there were other interests, many of the older boys dropped out. My brother, Archie, was getting more into sports and such. In his same grade, though, was Dave, who kept on with Scouting. Dave set his sights on being the first in our troop to reach the rank of Eagle Scout, and I wanted to follow him. Eagle meant earning twenty-one merit badges, of which, as I recall, Camping was one that was required.

      Although I lived in the dorm with few resources, fortunately for me Dave’s family was there in Pyongyang, and quite close by. His dad had found a good location for camping on the level ground beyond the Pothong River. Dave and I hiked out there. He had a pup tent that we set up. I think we even made a campfire, before we pushed ourselves into the pup tent for the night.

      It was fascinating and a bit scary to be out there in dark solitude, just the two of us. We could hear an occasional sound from the village across the fields—a child’s crying, some thumping sounds and a dog barking. Then it was quiet.

      After a bit, abruptly, we sensed something moving quite close by. I clutched the tent flap, holding it tightly closed. The sound came close, and for a long moment there was a snuffling right at the edge of our tent. More sniffing, moving around to the other side, and then it went away.

      “One of those village curs,” Dave said. “They’re always hungry. Good I didn’t have any food out there in my back pack.”

      “Yeah,” I answered, glad to have the assurance and to have silence again.

      Dave achieved Eagle Scout rank that spring, before he graduated and left for college. I finished it in the fall. The Eagle Scout badge was like a medal, with the eagle suspended from a ribbon. A Scout could go on, after gaining the twenty-one merit badges for Eagle, and earn five more for a Bronze Palm, to pin on the Eagle ribbon. I did that—to enjoy the satisfaction of accomplishing something more and, I admit, to surpass Dave’s mark.

      Far back along the way since then, I lost that trophy. With so many moves and so many homes through the years, a number of valuables disappeared—among them, my Phi Beta Kappa key and the Eagle Scout badge.