Fussell's bugbears

In his "Boy Scout Handbook" essay, Paul Fussell expresses delight that the more recent editions of the handbook are free of references to constipation, which is no longer "the bugbear it was generations ago."

Let me tell you that this is quite the loss.

Over Thanksgiving, the entire my-parents family was ferociously excited about the 1911 Handbook's references to physical health of all sorts. It promises a few health rules for growing boys that I think we need to attend to right now:

My favorite are the rules for eating. Ignore diet books, folks, because I think this will pretty much set you straight. First, don't eat too much. Second, don't eat meat more than once a day. Third, "don't eat anything that you always taste for several hours after you have eaten it, even though you like it." As a vegetarian for something like 10 or 11 years now (yowza), I've managed to convert John to eating a lot of meat substitutes around our house, so I'm kind of delighted with the century-old advice to limit meat consumption. However, the third piece of advice is really the hilarious kicker for me. As you're going to see in a moment, the Handbook assumes these teenage farm boys have the digestions of elderly bankers. There's more refernece to heartburn, indigestion, and, yes, constipation in the next few pages than in an AARP bulletin.

I begin.

Our discussion of eating advises, correctly, that we ought to be aware of our limits (though the Handbook's particular calling out of cucumbers as a frequent source of digestive trouble gives me pause). We are further advised that most boys "eat too much of a mixed nature," combining foods like pickles, soda, hot dogs, and chocolate (their list, not mine) in a "riot of eating." We are not to eat when excited, angry, tired, worried, or studying, and must chew our food until it is "the thickness of pea soup." While that did successfully kill my appetite, I'd like to point out that it killed the appetite for the huge brownie I just ate, while being kind of tired and totally excited to be reading the handbook, y'all! Take that. Really. Failure to ignore these pieces of advice will lead to our two chief problems (like I said): indigestion and constipation.

Rather than paraphrase the constipation warnings, I'll give it to you straight: "Drink a cool, copious draught of water upon arising. Then take some body-bending exercises. Follow this with the sponge bath. Then, if possible, take a walk around the block before breakfast. After school, play some favorite game for at least an hour. In the absence of this, take a good hike of three or four miles or a longer bicycle ride. At least twice a week, if possible, enter a gymnasium class and make special emphasis of body-bending exercises." We also need to schedule a regular poop time, whether we need to or not, and to eat plenty of graham crackers.

The Handbook also warns against coffee and tea, deeming them stimulants which can cause your own organs to eat themselves (really) and which a growing boy should have nothing to do with. It has a little confusion w/r/t stimulants, though, classifying tobacco as a narcotic, which we also ought to avoid. (Points for effort on this one.)

I'm idly considering a few days eating like a boy scout (or like one ought to). Taking this too far, or taking it not far enough? We'll see.

PS: There is a full section in the Handbook about the importance of avoiding discharges of "sex fluid." I feel too awkward to address this. Do you want to learn about it? Try searching this phrase: "To yield means to sacrifice strength and power and manliness." Yeah. That's right.