BE PREPARED
The motto of the Boy Scouts of America is "Be Prepared."

The founder of scouting worldwide, Lord Baden Powell, was once asked, "Be prepared for what?"

Powell replied, "Why, for any old thing."

Wisdom for the ages right there, kids. Wisdom for the ages.

Back in my misspent youth, yours truly was actually a Boy Scout. Hard to believe for some of you, I realize, but the fact of the matter is, I was a member of Troop 575 in Dallas, Texas. I never made it to Eagle Scout - I went off to boarding school at age 16, which threw a monkey wrench in that plan - but I still managed to learn a lot in my time in the Boy Scouts. Case in point, I learned how to smoke cigarettes. Nothing like the smell of a campfire to cover illicit deeds like one's first Camel. But I also learned useful, less-cancer-causing things in scouting.

Apparently I failed to truly internalize the motto, however, as I recently found myself horrifically unprepared for the obvious thing, let alone any old thing.

Jill and I recently hosted ourselves a little cookout. Although it was a Memorial Day celebration, it was one of those early summer outdoor things you do just because the sun hasn't yet set at five o'clock. So picture the scene: I'm all good to go at the grill. I've got all the food ready to grill. I've got all the utensils set up. I've even got a new grill-side table on which to place the accoutrements. But, I'll be damned if I thought about checking the propane tank.

The Spencer family has a long history of dinner party screw-ups. Case in point, there's a story about my mother and veal cutlets at a dinner party once long ago, something about veal pieces so small, it took a vast number to feed the assembled diners. Long story short, Mom didn't realize how mammoth the volume was until it was too late, and she was hand-dipping pieces of veal into flour and then cooking them long into the night. It's actually a very funny story, and Mom tells it quite well. Ask her about it when you see her. She'll appreciate it. Seriously. But I digress.

No chance to pin this one on Mom. This Spencer-related cooking disaster was all on me. I'd invited people over for dinner, and now they were going to be eating raw food. Because, you know, the grill couldn't have done something helpful like run out of propane when Yates was actually open. No. That would have been easy. It had to be the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. I was, at that exact moment, the world's worst Boy Scout. The worst one ever. Not to mention a God-awful dinner host.

Thank God for Fred Clark.

Freddy, whom I have known longer than members of my own family, immediately jumped up and offered to go to his house and retrieve his extra propane tank. See, Freddy is actually smart like that. He's a good Boy Scout. He's prepared. He's got an extra propane tank so that when he's having a dinner party, he's not dependent on one of his dinner guests to actually provide the ability to cook the meal. Not only prepared, he's also considerate. So Freddy books it home and in no time flat is back in my driveway with a full tank of propane. And he wouldn't even accept a tip. He's good like that.

Thanks to Freddy, it all came off pretty well, if I do say so myself, and I learned a valuable lesson about being prepared. And it suddenly dawned on me. You've got to be prepared for a lot of things in life- like fishing.

Am I alone here in lamenting the fact that there's no merit badge for segue writing?

Friends and neighbors, if I've said it once, I've said it a 100 times. And, God only knows, if I've been victimized by it once, I've been victimized by it 100 times. You need to take extra equipment with you when you go fishing. God as my witness, just about every over-the-top fishing experience I've had has been cut short due to something breaking. Something that I don't have an extra one of. And, you know what they say. Forget to bring extra stuff once, shame on you. Forget to bring extra stuff 100 times, you might just be Andrew Spencer.

Bluefish jumping out of the water 10 ft. off the beach? Too bad the only rod I brought with me just snapped in half when I was taking it out of the car. People catching stripers as if they're going out of style? Wish I'd thought to bring an extra reel, because this one doesn't seem to be working so well. And these are not stories I'm pulling out of thin air, kids. These are based on real-world experiences lived through by the world's worst Boy Scout. The worst one ever.

There is no feeling you'll ever have when fishing like the one that results from missing out on phenomenal fishing because you were trying to save a little room in the car by not bringing your extra equipment. It's miserable. So before you head out, make sure you've got a couple of rods, a couple of reels and a bunch of tackle. All of that stuff is cheap, when you're talking about the shame of having to admit you weren't prepared and you missed out on the fish because of it. So invest in extra stuff. It's money well spent. And besides, you'll be teaching your progeny a good lesson about being prepared.

And if you're still adamant about just bring one of everything, make sure you take Freddy with you. The guy's got a huge truck, and there's no telling how much stuff he can fit in the back of it.

Tight lines. I