My Eagle Scout (Part 4 of 12)

After that I got one or two or three merit badges a month. I had a goal to get at least three a month. I think my high was nine in one month. All in all I earned 58 merit badges. The requirement for Eagle was to have at least 21 merit badges and I had 47 at the time I got my Eagle. For me, completing the requirements for the merit badge was the easy part. Calling the merit badge counselor on the phone was the scary part, but somehow I mustered up the courage to do it. That was a skill that would come in handy in later teenage years as I needed to call girls on the phone and ask for a date. (Almost the same level of scariness.) My Dad had a thing about merit badges. If a parent called Dad to make an appointment for his boy, Dad would say, "I want your son to call me himself to make an appointment.” And Dad wanted to see the boy in full uniform before he would pass him off on a merit badge. Of course I did the same thing due to Dad's guidelines.
I say a lot about my Dad, and he surely did have a great influence on me in scouting. But my Mom also had a big influence. She was the one who took me to the store to get supplies for doing merit badges and items I needed for camps and scouting activities.