Home Poems Stories Talks Visuals About

Snowy Road to Eagle Badge

There were six of us, plus three adult volunteers, standing sideways on a slippery hill, digging small holes, and placing Douglas Fir seedlings in them. It was early May, and we had missed a very important deadline by five months but it was important to me to finish what I had started.

This was supposed to be the culmination of my Eagle Scout service project. I was excited as we prepared to plant the seedlings in precise rows to stabilize the slope and prevent landslides. Soil slippage had plagued Seahurst Park in Burien for more than three decades.

The project was scheduled for the first week of January 1969. We had permits from the park to be on the slope. Weyerhaeuser had was donating 200 seedlings to the project. We were ready with our Pulaskis and mud boots.

I'd planned for six months, recruiting a team of fellow scouts and leaders. Gotten the appropriate paperwork completed. Made arrangements to have the seedlings donated. Organized the work and diagrammed the plant placement. I thought of everything... almost.

But then it snowed. And snowed. And kept snowing. In all, it was the worst snowstorm in Seattle history. There was 34 inches of snow on my parents' front lawn.

It was a catastrophic end to my planned work party.

The snow stayed on the ground for two weeks and for the rest of the month seeped into the water table—the same water table that made the Seahurst Park slope so dangerous. In fact, the park had two landslides in February and April.

I still wanted to continue with the work party, so I waited and waited. The county hydrologist's office would not let us begin until the water table dropped at least two inches. I talked it over with my volunteer team and they all agreed to stay on with me.

Finally, the second week of May we got the park's "go ahead" signal. My father picked up the seedlings from Weyerhaeuser's headquarters. Putting on our boots, we carefully climbed the slope.

Then every three feet, we dug a little hole, took the seedling out of its plastic wrapper, stood it up in the hole, and tamped soil around it. It took us about six hours to finally plant the last one.

We stepped back and gazed happily at the results. The slope bristled with little green nubs, a promise of success. We could see our boot prints up and down the slope, signifying that we had been busy.

But... I paid a price in the aftermath.

The snow nearly ruined my hopes of achieving my Eagle Scout rank. The rules were that the service project had to be completed before I could go through my board of review. And the board of review had to held before my 18th birthday on April 17.

Remember, the project was done the first weekend of May, two weeks past my full-stop deadline—13 months after planning began the previous July. My troop leaders shrugged their shoulders. There was nothing they could do.

Still, there was one option left, to directly petition the national scout executive's office for a dispensation. That gave me renewed hope, since the project had not been a last-minute hurry-up thing.

I submitted the documentation of my planning, progress, and results. I submitted before and after pictures. I submitted photos of the snow, along with an article printed in The Seattle Times. I submitted the positive comments from my board of review.

The national scout executive's office agreed to give me an extension. They agreed the delay was necessary because the park had acted to ensure our safety. I had, at last, earned my Eagle Scout award.

Their decision came with a caveat—I would not receive the Silver Palm I'd earned for extra merit badges. I also would not receive the traditional letter of congratulations from President Richard Nixon, the honorary chief scout.

I received my Eagle Scout medallion and certificate of achievement. I got a letter of congratulations from the national scout executive. I still remember his name, Alden Barber, although I seem to have lost the letter over the last 40 years.

When my children were in middle school, I took them to Seahurst Park and walked the nature trail until we got to the base of the slope. It was my first trip back since I'd left for college. Standing tall and holding the soil were at least 100 of the trees we planted that day in May 1969.