The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behing the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside him in her apron
To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,
As if it meant to prove saws know what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap -
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all -
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart -
He saw all was spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off -
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!"
So. The hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then - the watcher at his pulse took a fright.
No one believed. They listened to his heart.
Little - less - nothing! - and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.
..."Out, Out" by Robert Frost , Boston, MA
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Eagle Scout Sam Berzok, Scoutmaster Jim Berzok,
Ad Altare Dei (Catholic Scouting Award) Scout Tom Berzok
commemorate Memorial Day in East Brunswick, NJ |
"The old scoutmaster had a blunt answer for an obvious question, but Neil McAneny was always direct that way.
"Of course, this is a horrible, horrible black eye for scouting, and it does stain those people who very dedicated to the scouting movement," said McAneny, one of several million men whose name does not appear in the Boy Scouts
"Perversion Files."
McAneny was a boy scout himself in the 1950s, and when he graduated from Fairfield College, his old scoutmaster called on him to serve.
"We had a big troop and he needed an assistant scoutmaster," McAneny said. "So he talked me into returning. Then he had a heart attack and there I was, stuck with 50 kids."
There were overnights to the wilderness camp on
Allamuchy Mountain, and Jockey Hollow where Washington’s troops roughed it two hundred years earlier, and a piney campground near Englishtown where the boys could hear the roar of the dragsters through the woods. Camp Watchung in Glen Gardner was where the boys went in summer, sleeping on metal spring cots in open lean-tos. There were canoe trips on the Rancocas and Delaware. And there were always plenty of fathers around.
"We had a very active group of fathers, which made for a strong troop," he said.
And a safe troop, not that McAneny ever imagined otherwise.
"It was inconceivable to me that anyone would be involved in scouting for the wrong purposes," he said. "It never crossed my mind."
That was an age of innocence.
Good people with good intentions doing good work – millions and millions of them – and the parents who trusted them could not fathom there were creeps among them.
This makes the Boy Scouts "Perversion Files," which started being kept in 1947 — at the very start of the baby boom, at the very start of the height of scouting’s popularity — all the more egregious.
A Boy Scout statue in the Morganville section of Marlboro Township in Monmouth County.Noah K. Murray/The Star-Ledger
While the number of scout leaders named in the files is miniscule when compared to the overall number of well-meaning men and women (about 2 in every 100,000), the Boy Scouts’ shielding just one pedophile was a betrayal of trust, a trust so innocent we cannot fathom it today.
"You can call it an age of innocence, but it was also an age of denial," said Rush Russell, executive director of
Prevent Child Abuse New Jersey. "This is why we call (child abuse) the silent epidemic. People are uncomfortable that these things can be going on in their families, in their own schools and communities."
One particular case shows in the "Perversion Files" shows the extent of Boy Scouts’ denial.
In 1971, a Rhode Island assistant troop leader named
William Lazzareschi was caught in a sex act with a boy by the scoutmaster. The man admitted it and was expelled, but police were not called. Instead the boy was counseled by a Boy Scout chaplain named Rev.
Edmond C. Micarelli.
"Upon Father Micarelli’s recommendation, the parents were not notified," the file says.
In 1990, the priest himself wound up in the files, after a former scout accused him of raping both he and his brother. More victims came forward and in 2002, the Diocese of Providence paid $13.5 million to 36 victims of Micarelli and 10 other priests.
As for Lazzareschi, he was convicted of sexual assault in 1997 and possession of child pornography in 2005.
'Of course, this is a horrible, horrible black eye for scouting, and it does stain those people who very dedicated to the scouting movement'
Scouts, church, sports teams, music programs. The new stories of sex between adults and children under their supervision keep coming. It is depressing and alarming, and Russell thinks the publicity is ushering in an "age of vigilance."
"I think we’re in the starting blocks for a movement of vigilance," he said. "I think we’re beginning to understand we can’t expect kids to protect themselves.
"However, I think most people still see the major threat to their children as coming from strangers. But 90 percent of abuse comes from people they know, and people they trust."
Trust, like innocence, can no longer be taken for granted.
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| Eagles in the Adirondacks |
Edward Dragan, a career-educator expert who has been called as an expert witness on many sex abuse cases, says the all the attention now paid to sex abuse must bring increased diligence.
"We’re not going to eradicate the behavior, or the impulses," said Dragan, head of
Education Management Consulting in Lambertville. "You can do all the background checks you want, people are still going to engage in inappropriate behavior.
"What I’m generally seeing is these inappropriate relationships are becoming more secretive. Parents have to be more diligent about these relationships."
Almost all have two things in common: isolation and trust.
"These victims are groomed by adults they trust. Then, when that kid is isolated, the secret activity starts," Dragan said. "The private music tutoring … the coach who says, ‘I’ll give (a kid) a ride to the game."
Sometimes, the "secret activity" can happen in plain sight. Dragan worked a case a few years ago where a female high school coach would ride the bus next to a particular player, throw a blanket over their laps and fondle the girl.
"Didn’t anyone ask why (the) coach always sat next to that girl?" he said.
Maybe no one thought to.
But, like they say, that was then, this is now."
Much remains to be said. As a teacher, a scouting mom, and a Catholic I am appalled by the continuous stream of verified accusations against men to whom we have given our trust. I know, though, as a teacher, a scouting mom, and a Catholic I have not knowingly encountered them. They are secret, devious people. Lots of good men have been cast in a harsh light because of them. Let's protect our kids and learn about the other adults with whom they interact.
Keep reading and writing,
Maureen
