IN MY SHOES: What It’s Like To Be An Octogenarian Boy Scout
Vahram "Vee" Sookikian, 81, recently completed a 10-night, 60-mile trek at the Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, NM, with his 50-year-old son Steve and 15-year-old grandson Julian, reports The Boston Globe:
Few are the families in our sedentary nation where three generations share a trail, undulating between 7,000 and 10,000 feet under a withering sun. Few families have an octogenarian who can carry 40 pounds on his back for a week and a half to sleep on the ground under the stars. …
Sookikian, a retired electronics engineer, never stopped walking from the time he joined a troop in Brooklyn, in time to be part of the 90th birthday celebration in 1940 of Dan Beard, a founder of American scouting. By age 16, as World War II sapped the adults from the troop, Sookikian played scoutmaster, leading younger Scouts onto subways and buses in full backpacks to woodland camps out of New York City.
"My dad walked everyday in his life and lived to 86. I never knew him to be sick until just before he died," said Vee, whose Armenian parents escaped genocide in Turkey. "When I started, I never thought I'd make a good Scout or hiker. I never made Eagle (Scouting's highest rank) because I could not do a standing broad jump. …
"I knew so many people who, when they turned 65, all they could talk about was sitting in a lounge chair and smoking a pipe," a glowing Sookikian said. "To me, that was like preparing to die. I hope to do this until the day I die."
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