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I haven't the foggiest who the sponsor was. I'm not even certain of the troop number anymore; I THINK it was troop 96 out of Vestavia Hills, but I wouldn't bet my life on it. I remember two or three of my fellow scouts from that troop fairly well, but all I remember for sure of the organization itself is the jerk in question's first name, "Dale." And that he was an assistant scoutmaster, not the head scoutmaster.

I made some fairly exhaustive web searches to try to confirm the troop number, but unfortunately there isn't a whole lot of data available online even about current troops, much less about troops from the early 80s.

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Right, but how would I know for sure which one I'd belonged to even if presented a list of the ones in the area?

I can tell you for a fact that there is no one named "Dale" currently active as a staff member in any boy scout troop in the Birmingham area with any online presence. Beyond that, it all gets pretty hazy. To be positive even that it was Troop 96 I was in, I'd have to find someone with records of Scout rolls from about '82 or '83.

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Someone's might, but mine almost certainly doesn't. We weren't a very camera-esque family; the number of existing pictures of me as a child could probably be counted by Dubya with both shoes still on.

23 years later, I only remember the names of two other scouts - a kid named Terry I was constantly getting into fights with, and a kid named Francis [last name censored] who I was very fond of. I don't think any of the other kids in the troop had problems with Dale while I was there, at least, because I had recounted the fact that Dale kept obsessing about gay football player rapists to several of them in a group (though not the weirdness at his apt - that might not even have happened yet, the recounting might very well have been on that same weekend) and they were all clearly shocked. Actually, they thought I was accusing Dale of being gay - which, ironically enough, I wasn't - and they found it difficult to believe, to say the least.

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Troop 96 IS the Vestavia Hills troop. Google it, and you'll find it. The problem is, I'm by no means completely certain that Vestavia Hills is the correct troop area. There were several troops in Birmingham even then, and I didn't really attend one that was specific to the neighborhood *I* lived in, which was Eastlake. I couldn't even begin to tell you what church sponsored the troop, because I was an atheist from the day I was born and frankly didn't care about any such thing. I'm almost certain that I was never a member of any troop (this was not the only scout troop I was a member of) with a three digit designation, but I can't swear to that either.

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Yeah. Exactly. Meaning without one unholy HELL of a lot of effort that might not even be possible, I can't even determine for sure what troop I was in - because I frankly didn't rememeber that number off the top of my head, it was simply the first under-three-digit troop number in the Birmingham area I could find online, and it's really obvious that there AREN'T any complete and all-inclusive records online, so my actual old troop might not even BE online anywhere for me to see its number and have my memory jarred, so...

Yeah.

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Wow, what a story. You're lucky that it didn't go any further!

I definitely think you should say something. I mean, chances are the guy is in jail or dead, but you never know. He could still be a scout master. Or a priest. I'm SURE there's a way to find out who he is, but it will take a little research.

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I'd have been the eight year old that got talked into believing that it was perfectly normal, and even better, beneficial for an eight year old to get fucked by old men and to keep it as our special secret. I was raised with RESPECT MA AUTHORATAH, do it/don't do it because I said so, and I never got the you can always tell me anything, and the there are certain places you have that should never be touched (catholic mothers didn't talk about those places and maybe wished they didn't even exist). I was taught that above all, be nice and don't hurt people's feelings. It's a wonder I survived. It's nice to be a parent and get to do it all different.

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I am so sorry that happened to you. That makes me incredibly angry.

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Thank you, that means a lot. But honestly, nothing worse happened to me than being a little sketched out for a few minutes and... displaying large amounts of my own anger and hostility in response to a potential target. Which wasn't exactly something unusual in my day to day life. I wouldn't even have been afraid of him if I HAD known what he was on about. My fear was all internally directed then - not being good enough, not measuring up to some standard, not being taken seriously. Those were my all-consuming fears. All I had left for the outside world after that was seemingly inexhaustible ferocity, just itching for a valid target to present itself.

I just really, really hope that I was both his first intended target, and that I managed to make him skittish enough of the whole idea that I was his last as well. If that's not the case, I failed somebody else pretty badly.

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I went to catholic high school. We had a wrestling coach that was a little to enthusiastic about wrestling his charges. When one of his team got into trouble this coach would offer to punishments. Wrestle, or be booted from the team. Of course everyone wrestled him. I wasn’t a member of the wrestling team, but I once watched a ‘punishment’ session, and it was disconcerting.

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I don't know how many times I was attacked by big gay football player rapists when I was a kid...It turns out we had a nest of them in the crawlspace under the garage.

Seriously though, Scoutmaster Dale needs to have his dick cut off.

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