I would give a case of cold Coca-Colas for a TV set and cable. I miss watching TV. CNN, yeah, sure. It’s part of my job. But I also miss the Cartoon Network and TV Land and Nickelodeon. The Green Hornet, The Rat Patrol, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Gunsmoke, Batman.

I grew up watching Batman on TV several times. The first time, in the 60s and later when I got back from living in Germany, in the 70s. Then cable came around and Batman was on it, too—sometimes twice a day.

Not the cartoon Batman, but the real life Batman, Adam West. The show was hokey . . . to a point whereby sometimes it was hard to watch. But I watched it. Each week, the Dynamic Duo would work through a crime in Gotham City, sometimes aided by the items in their Bat-utility belts, but most times simply by their wits. The part of the show I remembered more than anything was when the Commissioner had to get hold of Batman and he wasn’t at home. Alfred, Bruce Wayne’s (Batman’s street identity) butler and assistant, would turn on the Bat light (one of those giant floodlights they use now for store grand openings with the Bat emblem in the center) and somehow Batman and Robin would see a giant bat in the clouds against the night sky.

My oldest son once watched an episode with me and as I said "Watch this!" he looked, then stood up from sitting on his part of the couch and announced "That man needed a cell phone back then!!" and then proudly walked off.

"We didn’t have cell phones back then!" I yelled, watching as the two reached the Wayne mansion, walked into the library, turned a sculpture down and pushed a button, and ran toward two fire poles which contained their costumes. They rode down the poles to the bottom and emerge as Batman and Robin, ready for action!

"Dick Tracy had a phone on his watch. We don’t even have that yet! And wasn’t Dick Tracy and them BEFORE Batman?" My smart-aleck smart son.

"Okay, you’ve got a point!"

I remember also reading a Boys’ Life article about the Scout Sign and its importance back in the middle 60s. Besides being the sign common to every legitimate and illegitimate Scouting association in the world, it also performs some amazing actions of its own. It is a symbol of attention, of "shut your face and listen to me!" of authority. I don’t know how many Scoutmasters have drummed that into the brains of their Scouts (and later when I became a Scoutmaster, I found myself saying the same thing!!):

"When the Sign goes up, the mouth goes shut!"

I read a newspaper account when Gerald Ford became President, that he raised his hand in the Sign of the Scout to receive the presidential oath of office. I have looked in archive after archive, and I cannot find a single photo with him holding his hand in anything other than full palmed. I would love to get a photo of him doing this. It would be a centerpiece in any office which I have. Someone, though, who knew how strongly President Ford felt about his Scouting experience—proving that adage that an Eagle Scout could do just about anything, including serving as President of the United States—made that up and now it’s one of those Scouting urban legends.

In that Boys’ Life article, I read that adult men would be stranded or lost, or new to a town. They would go to the center of town, and raise their hand in the Sign of the Scout. Almost immediately, others who know the importance of the Sign of the Scout would come to their aid. They would give him food, a place to live, and most of all, friendship—just because they were Scouts.

"Yeah, right!" I could hear Scouts (and a lot of Scouters!) say. "That will NEVER work today!"

So, while I was overseas stationed at Saddam Hussein’s former Presidential Palace (now called "Freedom Palace"), located almost in the center of the city and uphill from the Tigress River, I performed an experiment.

The Palace was populated with a third military suits, from all branches of the American and four other nations’ armed services; a third politicals, Presidential appointees from the State or Defense Departments and volunteers from a number of federal agencies all sent over to Iraq to staff provisional offices and bureaus; and a third foreigners, to include host-nation Iraqis who have been cleared to work side-by-side with the other two-thirds. It was at the start; a great experience to be there and see people who normally had positions in the Pentagon or at their services’ logistical or personnel commands or who would normally work at the State Department. Truth be known, there are probably a few Central Intelligence Agency field operatives in the mix too...

(Starting with the second week and continuing until the kitchens were sterilized cleaned, and stocked with food, coffee was served in the center Rotunda area of the Palace. This was the place where just about everyone congregated before taking off to the do the important work of stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq.)

On this particular morning—a Friday morning—I waited until I knew more than a handful of people would be around. Taking my last swigs of coffee from the large Chick-Fil-A red and white mug I filled a couple of hours prior, I sat it down on a marble seat. I then climbed on top of the marbled circular table—one of four in the Rotunda—stood as still as I could and raised my right hand in the Sign of the Scout.

I listened. I looked around. After about 20 seconds of standing there, Scout sign proudly at the 90-degree angle taught to me by my Patrol Leader Stanley when I was 10 and a half years old, nothing. I started to really feel stupid standing there. Two men and a woman came up to me after 30 or so more seconds. I lowered my hand and looked at them.

"I was just being silly, that’s all. I’m okay." I stepped down from the large marble table, looking at the three of them, all with a coffee cup in their hands, looking at me.

I introduced myself and stated where I worked. I again reassured them that I was sane and did not inflict myself with one of the atropine injectors or something.

"When someone did that back in Oregon, where I’m from, they wanted my attention. You must be a Scoutmaster."

"Used to be," I said, wiping my sneaker prints from the table with an extra paper napkin I had. "Boy Scout, too."

"You were a Boy Scout?" the woman asked. "I was a Girl Scout. When someone did that, we were told it meant they needed help. You sure you don’t need help?"

"I was working through an experiment for a story," I said to the three of them, pointing to my opened PDA sitting on the shiny marble. "I write short stories on the side."

"In my world," the other man stated with a heavy British accent, "It means ‘Come quick! I’ve got something to tell you!’"

I recounted the story I remembered from the Boys’ Life article and soon, I had three new friends: Denise, one of the smallest women on the CPA staff and the senior staff lawyer; Curt, the guy working with the Ministry of Education; and Simon, the man who later worked with us as a part of the external communications team. We exchanged email addresses and more small talk, told each other where we could be found in the large Palace, and we moved toward our workplaces.

The experiment worked, although I felt stupid standing there in my blue jeans and shirt, holding my hand in the Scout Sign for what seemed to be hours.

I wonder. Did anyone take a photo of me doing this stunt? Not that I would care. Just wondering. . . .

Settummanque!