After years on Surly/Shag/Hornfans, I never knew there was a scouting thread until I happened to run across it tonight. Excellent.
My journey to scouting was unconventional, as I was never involved as a kid. My eldest got roped in by friends in 1st grade, so we joined our school's pack. He took to it like a duck to water, and we had a solid den leader with a pretty large/active pack, so we got involved pretty quickly. Fast forward two years and the outgoing committee chair pleaded and begged for me to take over - I finally said yes after 3-4 nos. The incoming cubmaster ghosted us right before the new school year, so I ended up doing both jobs for 18 months until we finally found a new cubmaster (thank heavens). In the meantime, our youngest had gotten involved too and ended up in a den that grew to 16 boys.
I still sort of kept BSA/scouting culture at arm's length (simply because I only knew the Cub Scouts side of things) until our oldest crossed over and joined a troop. He's in a great medium-sized troop (about 35 boys with a co-chartered girls troop of 12 girls) with strong scout and adult leadership. In the three years we've been involved, I ended up doing IOLS and other trainings, taught a couple merit badges and have chaperoned too many campouts to count - and loved every minute. It's really gotten me into camping in a big way, too - much to my wife's chagrin since her interest in camping has really waned since our pre-kid days.
Bpth our boys are in the troop now and I've just accepted the committee chair position beginning next school year, so I'll be kinda shadowing our current CC (the same guy I succeeded as CC in the pack) this coming spring. Our oldest just did his OA ordeal this past weekend and we've both signed up for Philmont this coming summer, so I guess we're really in it for the long haul now.
Glad this thread is here - I look forward to reading more!