Scoutmaster's Minute & Coach's Corner
as part of a Mountain Top Experience

"Our Teachers' Quorum adviser, Harold Watson, was interested in us, and we knew it. One day during the time I served as president of the Teachers' Quorum, he said to me, 'Tom, you enjoy raising pigeons, don't you?'

I responded with a warm 'Yes.'

The he proffered, 'How would you like me to give you a pair of purebred Birmingham Roller pigeons?'

This time I answered, 'Yes, sir!' The pigeons I had were just the common variety I had trapped on the roof of the Grant Elementary School.

Harold invited me to come to his home the following evening. The next day was one of the longest in my young life. I was awaiting my adviser's return from work an hour before he arrived. He took me to his loft, which was in a small barn at the rear of his yard. As I looked at the most beautiful pigeons I had yet seen, he said, 'Select any male, and I will give you a female that is different from any other pigeon in the world.'

I made my selection. He then placed in my hand a tiny hen. I asked what made her so different. He responded, 'Look carefully, and you will notice that she has but one eye.' Sure enough, one eye was missing, a cat having done the damage. 'Take them home to your loft,' he counseled. 'Keep them in for about ten days and then turn them out to see if they will remain at your place.'

I followed his instructions. When I released them, the male pigeon strutted about the roof of the loft and then returned inside to eat. But the one-eyed female was gone in an instant. I called Harold and asked, 'Did that one-eyed pigeon return to your loft?'

'Come on over and we'll have a look,' he said.

As we walked from his kitchen door to the loft, my adviser commented, 'Tom, you're the president of the Teachers' Quorum.' This I already knew. He added, 'What are you going to do to activate Bob Middleton?'

I answered, 'I will have him at quorum meeting this week.'

Harold reached up to a special nest and handed me the one-eyed pigeon. 'Keep her for a few days and try again.'

This I did, and once again she disappeared. Again the response, 'Come on over and we'll see if she returned here.' Again I made the trek to Harold's house.

Came the comment as we later walked to the loft, 'Congratulations on getting Bob to priesthood meeting. Now what are you and Bob going to do to activate Bill Devenport?'

'We will have him at our meeting this week,' I volunteered.

This experience was repeated over and over again. I was a grown man before I fully realized that indeed Harold, my adviser, had given me a special pigeon; the only bird in his loft he knew would return every time she was released. It was his inspired way of having an ideal personal priesthood interview with the Teachers' Quorum president every two weeks. I owe a lot to the one-eyed pigeon. I owe more to that quorum adviser. He had the patience to help me prepare for opportunities that lay ahead."