I’m sorry, but Mark Laflamme’s recent admission that he had never been a Boy Scout just floored me.

Those of us who share the same newsroom with Mark know him as a paragon of virtue and clean living. When he is not sharpening the pencils of elderly editors, he can be found buffing his wing tips, straightening his bow tie and practicing his diction. He is a model employee with perfect posture and nary a vice.

I hope I’m not revealing some sort of trade secret here, but the guy is such a…well, Boy Scout, despite his lack of formal training. Amazing.

I was also saddened to see that Mark’s Scouting experience was dull and short lived. Mine was anything but, and Mark’s recent column, and the continuing coverage of the endangered Camp Gustin in Sabattus, reminded me of that.

I was a Scout from beginning to end, joining as a 6-year-old Cub and exiting as an Eagle Scout when I was about 15. This all occurred, of course, in the 1960s, and I recognize that Scouting may have changed a bit over the years. Maybe the Scouts now have merit badges for Twittering and video gaming.

Forty years later, I now realize that I owe my Scouting experience to three brave men, Kenny Hudnell, Sam Goldberg and my own father, who were our leaders at various times. Imagine spending a week with 25 boys, all armed with sheath knives, hatchets and strike matches. Those men were either very courageous or seriously crazy.

For a week or two every summer, and on occasional weekends during the year, we lived like a band of renegades.

We slept in cabins that would have been condemned as unfit for human habitation in any other circumstance, with roaring pot-bellied stoves threatening to turn them into instant infernos.

We staged secret axe and knife throwing contests, and started fires with aerosol cans of deodorant. We played “murder ball,” which meant one kid ran with a football and everyone else tried to kill him. We threw buckets of water over the walls of latrines and got into occasional fist fights.

We conducted night-time forays into the woods, in constant search of the elusive girl’s camp always just over the horizon, even though most of us would have been tongue-tied in the presence of an actual girl.

Then there was the rumored nudist camp, which, again, was just over the horizon, although in a completely different direction and required wading through a swamp full of leeches. I’m still not sure why the possibility of seeing middle-aged naked people seemed so interesting. Maybe we thought they were all Swedish supermodels.

Needless to say, neither nudists nor girls materialized. It was the quest for them that mattered.

We went swimming at night after learning never to do so, and threatened to throw smaller kids into the snake pit. Yes, our camp had an actual stone pit, like a dug well, with a collection of snakes at the bottom, which fueled many a vivid nightmare.

We all ate in a big, loud mess hall full of square, eight-person tables. Once, we all started chanting “Alka Seltzer, Alka Seltzer” and pounding the butts of our utensils on the tabletops. Until, that is, Pete, the camp’s warden — a retired Marine with a bristle cut — stood and paralyzed 100 boys with his glare.

We used our official Scout flashlights to scan Playboy magazines in dark tents and even sipped on tiny airline bottles of booze that occasionally found their way into our hands.

But, in exchange for all this freedom, we were also compelled to learn some extremely useful stuff. I can tie about five good knots, which I’ve used about million times since then, thanks to Scouting. I learned the J-stroke in a canoe and how to swim. I learned to read a map and compass, how to “whip” the end of a rope, clean a shotgun and how to select the best place to pitch a tent.

Once, for a merit badge, I spent an afternoon with an old, retired house painter, who taught me everything I’ve needed to know to maintain the houses I’ve owned.

I also learned Morse code and semaphore, two skills I’m still looking for an opportunity to employ.

Scouting drummed a few good values into my head. And I can still recite the Scout Law on demand — you know, trustworthy, loyal, helpful . . . — after all these years, while freely admitting I’ve fallen short of complete obedience.

Eventually, I became more interested in cars, girls and sports, and I left Scouting.

But, many years later, I realize Scouting gave me a rich assortment of skills and memories, which have never left me.

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