Some years ago I was one of the scoutmasters taking a Boy Scout troop of forty boys from the west coast to the national jamboree held in Virginia. Some of our scouts had never flown before, but having completed the jamboree training program we assumed they'd be just fine.

However, before the airplane even took off, a mad-as-a-wet-hen stewardess came looking for the head scoutmaster. He was sitting next to me, so I also bore the brunt of her frustration. The stewardess sharply told us to get our scout troop under control. She complained that this was the second scout group to board the aircraft in the last two days that had immediately begun to page her crew and she was darn well fed up with it.

We suddenly realized we did hear the page bell dinging and dinging. We were stunned as we'd not had trouble with any of our scouts on the training campouts and previous trips to other destinations. Our head scoutmaster stood up, made the scout sign with his hand to get the scouts attention and told everyone to stop pushing the page buttons. He was still flabberghasted over the turn of events as we started down the runway.

As the plane lifted off the tarmac, I opened the in-flight magazine, and there, just a few pages in, was a full page advertisment for Dr. Pepper soda-pop. The ad pictured the airline's overhead console that has a little call button marked with the symbol of an attendant holding a tray. Except in the ad this button was blown up full page and on the tray was a can of Dr. Pepper above the words "Ask your flight attendant for a Dr. Pepper NOW!"

The Head Scoutmaster folded that page open, and stared up at the "fasten seat belt" sign like a hawk. As soon as it switched off, he was out of his seat and down the aisle to find the head stew! He showed her the article and once she realized these adolescents were simply following instructions printed in her own airline's magazine she apologized.

In fact the poor gal stopped by several times during the flight to apologize profusely. However, we did end the flight with a good laugh. As the plane landed and began to taxi toward the terminal, the stew came on the intercom to announce "We are going to disembark the Dr. Pepper Scouts first."