Jordan

Emails from Hubert Jordan to Scoutmaster Lanar Feb 2009

My name is Hubert Jordan, I was a member of Troop 33 in the late 50's and early 60's. Everett Kester was the scout master. I was reading your list of eagle scouts and found my friend’s name misspelled. Karl Krumke(not Krume) and his brother Jimmy Krumke were my neighbors and their father and uncle were assistant scout masters. A lot of the members in those days lived in DC. I lived on 1st street nw. Gary Colangelo's father was the tennis coach at Calvin Coolidge HS. I remember when we purchased the land in Rommey. Most of all I remember we were very active and it was a great troop. We went on lots of camping trips in addition to our two weeks each summer at Camp Roosevelt.

It is good to see the troop is still active. I have many fond memories of our troop.

Hubert Jordan

Great Falls, VA

[I asked if he knew the where abouts of Karl Krumke. And what were his memories of the troop and if he remembered when the Pancake supper started.]

Karl Krumke went to Virginia Tech. and I believe he served in military. I lost contact after I moved to Maryland. I did my senior year at Blair while Karl graduated from Coolidge. I believe his family moved to Virginia. It is interesting you have a pond call Troll pond. One of the members of the troop was Robert Troll. Robert was much taller than me and we got paired one night when we did boxing. I remember swing hard and I almost broke his nose. It was pretty bloody and I think that ended our boxing night.

Another memory was we were having a retreat ceremony up at camp Schmitt. Karl Krumke's father had a civil war pistol and was getting ready to fire a salute. As he was raising the pistol in the air his thumb slipped off the hammer and the gun went off striking Karl in the groin area. After stopping the bleeding we put Karl in the back of a station wagon which took him to the hospital.

My father took me to my first meeting with the troop and met two of his sergeants whom he had served with in the DC National Guard. He told me that I would be in good hands. One was in charge of the DC prison system and we got to tour the DC jail and sit in the electric chair. We also went to Lorton and interviewed some of the inmates. Needless to say it left an impression on all of us.

When we toured the Great Smoky Mountains the scout masters ran the troop with military precision. All the tents were put into one car. When we stopped for the night the first thing we had to do was set up the mess tent and the scout master's tents before we could set up out tents. We also had one car with all the stoves and cooking gear. Those scouts that had mess duty started the evening meal. In those days a lot of Boy Scout Troops were not allowed to camp in some of the state parks because of their behavior. We never had that problem. We used to Camp in the Prince William forest and we also used to camp near Camp David in Thurmont.

I don’t remember much about the pancake suppers other than we used to do them once a year in support of the Church. We used to sell hot dogs and cokes for the 4th of July parade in Takoma Park. We would rent a trailer from Pepsi from which we would sell hot dogs.

It sounds like you have plenty of activities for the boys. I often brag about our troop and all the activities we participated in. We had our own rifle team and used to go to the University of Maryland on Wednesday nights for marksmanship training. I got my distinguished expert rating while a member of the team.

Thank you for all you do. It is important that we have good scoutmasters. It is good to hear the troop is following in our foot steps.

Hugh

[I asked if he how the pond at Schmitt was built]

The pond was something I don’t remember. I know at the bottom they were drilling for natural gas. So it might have been something the gas company built for the troop. I remember Robert Troll's dad and he also was one of the assistant scout masters. We were lucky in that we had lots of Dad's to help out.

Like I said our troop had members from both DC and Maryland. So when I transferred from Coolidge to Blair I knew a lot of the students. Later when we got older we used to hang around the Hot Shoppes which had a drive in.

I learned a lot from Boy Scouts and the training I got was put to good use. I was a student at Montgomery College and in January 1966 a group of us went spelunking in WV. We were in a cave when the blizzard of 66 hit. The next morning we found ourselves stuck with about 2 feet of snow. We had to crawl out of the cave which was on a cliff overlooking the Potomac River. Once we reached the top of the cliff we had to make our way back to the farm house where we parked our cars. I remember my Boy Scout training that said to follow the tree lines as there is less snow on the ground. We had to walk a half mile to the pasture where the cars were. They were completely buried and the road was completely closed. We ended up spending three days in the farm house. We did chores such as helping to tend 35 milk cows.

When I joined the military I found that my Boy Scout training helped me prepare for basic training by giving me confidence in myself. Having a solid background and belief in God got me through the tough times in Vietnam. My unit was over run by a North Vietnamese battalion and we spent two weeks defending our position as the enemy made several attempts to destroy our artillery battery.

I am very grateful for my years with Troop 33 it was a great troop and it sounds like you are continuing to make it one of the best troops in Maryland. Thanks again for all your work, it really means a lot to the boys and they will come to appreciate it long after they leave the troop.

Hugh