Paging through BOYS' LIFE, Part 1: Donald Keith's Time Machine Stories

[beamjockey]

Long ago, Boys' Life, the monthly magazine of the Boy Scouts of America, ran the Time Machine series.

In these stories, a Boy Scout patrol finds an abandoned Time Machine in the wilderness; the Smart Kid figures out the controls and they roar off to adventure, acquiring new patrol members from ancient Sparta and from 4000 A.D. along the way.

They were published, starting in 1959, under the byline "Donald Keith," a pseudonym for the father-and-son team of Donald Monroe and Keith Monroe. Eventually Keith Monroe published some of the stories under his own name.

I greatly enjoyed these when I was a Scout. I now recall that I read some even before that. My dad was a Scout leader and I remember reading a Time Machine story, maybe the origin story, in one of his issues of Boys' Life before we moved out of The Little Red House, so it must have been 1962 or earlier.

The Time Machine itself-- a luxurious saucer-shaped model-- was quite powerful, if not quite user-friendly. You could set the controls for any point in space and time, it was built to survive even in outer space, and it featured a time-viewer so you could study history or the future.

Boy, I wanted one of these so badly I could taste it.

(Using the time-viewer could be dangerous, though. On some occasions Brains Baynes would be watching some horrible scene from history, then somebody would trip and fall on the gearshift knob and the Polaris Patrol would find themselves in the middle of trouble...)

In the past, I have tried to track down some of the Time Machine stories I haven't read. I've pursued this quest for a long time.

Recently Google has been bringing more magazines down from the attic. In the past week, they have been adding freshly scanned issues of Boys' Life almost daily. One benefit is that we can all enjoy some of the Time Machine stories.

Here are the Time Machine stories I know of. (Tip o' the hat to Jerry Boyajian, who helped me get this list started years ago.)

Month	Year	Title	Author	Comment
DEC	1959	The Day We Explored the Future	DK
FEB	1960	The Time Machine Flies Backwards	DK
JUN	1960	How We Got the Mind-Reading Pills	DK
JUL	1960	Our Time Machine at the Jamboree	DK
OCT	1961	Marco Polo and Our Time Machine	DK
FEB	1962	The Time Machine Slips a Cog	DK
DEC	1962	Mutiny in the Time Machine	DK	Dec 1962 to Mar 1963 (4-part serial)
JUN	1964	The Time Machine Cracks a Safe	DK
OCT	1964	Time Machine to the Rescue	DK
FEB	1965	The Time Machine Gets Stuck	DK	Feb 1965 to Apr 1965 (3-part serial)
APR	1967	The Time Machine Hunts a Treasure	DK	Apr 1967 to Jun 1967 (3-part serial)
DEC	1968	The Dog from the Time Machine	DK
SEP	1970	The Time Machine and the Generation Gap	DK
AUG	1971	The King and the Time Machine	DK
FEB	1973	The Time Machine Cleans Up	DK
AUG	1973	The Time Machine Twins the Jamboree	KM
DEC	1973	Santa Claus and the Time Machine	DK
NOV	1974	The Time Machine Fights Earthquakes	KM
APR	1975	The Time Machine Saves a Patriot	KM
JUL	1976	The Time Machine Kidnaps a Parade	KM
SEP	1988	Target Timbuktu	KM
FEB	1989	Why We Kidnapped Our Scoutmaster	KM
SEP	1989	Pirates Took Our Time Machine	KM

Some of the stories were combined into two fix-up books, Mutiny in the Time Machine (1963) and Time Machine to the Rescue (1967).

Using another pen name, Rice E. Cochran, Keith Monroe also published Be Prepared, a comic memoir about his experiences as a Scout leader, in 1952. It was the basis for a 1953 movie, Mister Scoutmaster.

(Part 2 of this series is Arthur C. Clarke's "The Sunjammer." Part 3 is Robert A. Heinlein's Scouts into Space. Part 4 is Dale Colombo's Starship MAGELLAN, more stories for which Keith Monroe was a co-author.)

Comments

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

I first encountered those in novel form, a book in the local library.

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

Oh this is wonderful. I went looking a couple year ago to see if I could find these. I must re-read them. Well, just plain read for so many of them.

[mswagner.livejournal.com]

Excellent! Definitely bookmarking this for later reading.

[samildanach.livejournal.com]

Oh, excellent! Thank you -- I recall reading the most recent three when they were published.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, I *loved* these as a kid! Thanks!

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Wow, the memories.

[msminlr.livejournal.com]

The link to Mister Scoutmaster seems to be fubar, at the IMDB end.

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

I remember taking my brother's Boy's life magazine and reading it on the sly. I thought it wasn't fair that they got these great stories and we girls didn't.

Time machine

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

I remember some of these very well. The time traveler had a good friend from the far future named Kai Beezy Tentroy (KBZ-10 Troy). I don't know when I could get around to tracking them down and rereading, but it's nice to have the info (as just in the last few months I had been wondering if I would ever see these again).

Nate

[acmespaceship.livejournal.com]

Way cool. Since I was a member of that class of humanity known as "girls" I never knew these stories existed.

Surely there's significance to the hero's name being Bob Tucker?

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

Oh, I remember these stories. Unfortunately, the ones I remember reading are among the ones that haven't been scanned yet. I think the one that really boggled my mind was the Santa Claus story.

I also encountered one of the fix-up books at my local library.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Found a few more...

The Time Machine Hunts a Treasure Apr 1967
http://books.google.com/books?id=ROj2GiDixoMC&pg=PA26

The Dog from the Time Machine Dec 1968
http://books.google.com/books?id=PaoDbR61vOoC&pg=PA46

The Time Machine and the Generation Gap Sep 1970
http://books.google.com/books?id=LeEWEfio9g8C&pg=PA13

The King and the Time Machine Aug 1971
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZLluIXjczmMC&pg=PA32

The Time Machine Cleans Up Feb 1973
http://books.google.com/books?id=SF5jT6jVWt8C&pg=PA8

The Time Machine Twins the Jamboree Aug 1973
http://books.google.com/books?id=sHUp8snNE7YC&pg=PA8

"Santa Claus and the Time Machine " Dec 1973 p. 38
http://books.google.com/books?id=yP46ITGHQt0C&pg=PA38

The Time Machine Fights Earthquakes Nov 1974
http://books.google.com/books?id=LBf4cf6Rye8C&pg=PA3

The Time Machine Saves a Patriot Apr 1975
http://books.google.com/books?id=yvkxFKJu9d8C&pg=PA28

The Time Machine Kidnaps a Parade Jul 1976 (by Keith Monroe)
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZhETjrWtzwwC&pg=PA30

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

This is peculiar:

The book Time Machine to the Rescue is listed as "by Keith Monroe" in magazine ads peddling the book (for example, http://books.google.com/books?id=Jve-6Dnm4YkC&pg=PA71) but the cover, and libraries, say it's by Donald Keith.

Sometimes the contradictory bylines are in the same ad:
http://books.google.com/books?id=4ixnlmZo_gYC&pg=PA65

thank you

[(Anonymous)]

Read and loved these as a kid.. never able to track them down, despite numerous searches for "Kai Beezy Ten Troy" Thanks for your index of stories. I found the collections on Amazon within minutes and they're on their way to me to share with my own Cub Scout son. THANKS!

Keith Monroe

[(Anonymous)]

I hope you don't mind that I put a link to your page on the Troop 2 BSA website. Keith was our Scoutmaster, and all Recruits are required to learn about his Scouting history:
http://www.troop2bsa.org/alumni/keithmonroe.html

Great!

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for the great resources you've given, its help me a lot. Starting to look of it. Keep it up!

From the Philippines,
Imee
ChooseYourOwnAdventureBooks.org for Kids, Adults and Teachers (http://www.ChooseYourOwnAdventureBooks.org)

[planettom.livejournal.com]

Great index, but, maybe I'm missing something obvious, but I don't get why you don't have links to the other parts of the serials:

MUTINY IN THE TIME MACHINE Part 2: Jan 1963:
http://books.google.com/books?id=SO1lJQ0rHpQC&pg=PA47#v=onepage&q&f=false

MUTINY IN THE TIME MACHINE Part 3: Feb 1963
http://books.google.com/books?id=iHp5ZS6zDEMC&pg=PA56#v=onepage&q&f=false

MUTINY IN THE TIME MACHINE Part 4: Mar 1963
http://books.google.com/books?id=dfpzTLL-8QkC&pg=PA50#v=onepage&q&f=false

THE TIME MACHINE GETS STUCK Part 2: Mar 1965
http://books.google.com/books?id=ztpAhQVVo8UC&pg=PA42#v=onepage&q&f=false

THE TIME MACHINE GETS STUCK Part 3: Apr 1965
http://books.google.com/books?id=SyvUJSdj4aAC&pg=PA28#v=onepage&q&f=false

THE TIME MACHINE HUNTS A TREASURE Part 2: May 1967
http://books.google.com/books?id=VdV9c0kCq0IC&pg=PA30#v=onepage&q&f=false

THE TIME MACHINE HUNTS A TREASURE Part 3: Jun 1967
http://books.google.com/books?id=BL0uGcw82P0C&pg=PA30#v=onepage&q&f=false

Can anyone detail which stories are in which of the two books, MUTINY IN THE TIME MACHINE and THE TIME MACHINE TO THE RESCUE?

The last story I read as a kid was the 1976 "The Time Machine Kidnaps A Parade", so I just now read the final 3 stories.

In "Why We Kidnapped Our Scoutmaster" (February 1989), I point out for the record that, even though they have a time machine, a healing suit, anti-gravity belts, and night goggles, all technology from Kai's time, and the help of an 1851 mountain man, the technology that actually saves Mr. Dunn's life is a 1989 drug dealer's Ferrari car phone!

Incidentally, I just did a similar index of Google Books links to all the SPACE CONQUERORS! space opera serial comics in BOYS' LIFE, 1957-1972, here.

[planettom.livejournal.com]

So, here's a minor mystery. I skimmed through all these stories, including the ones I'd never read before.

But there's one I'm not finding. I could have sworn there was one where they meet a kid in the past in their town, then in their present, he, now a much older adult, sees them, realizes they haven't aged, and deduces that they must have a time machine, and then, becomes a bit of an obsessed antagonist.

Now, the 2nd story, "The Time Machine Flies Backwards", has elements of this... they do meet a kid in 1910, but in 1960, when they visit his restaurant, he references a weird dream he had as a kid where he went to the future.

But that's all there is to it. He doesn't become a villain.

Now, it's possible this story was expanded when it made it to book form, but as a kid I only read TIME MACHINE TO THE RESCUE, not MUTINY IN THE TIME MACHINE, and it seems like if it made it into a book, it would have made it into the earlier MUTINY.

Of course, it's also very possible I'm just mistaken, and/or mistaking it somehow with elements of some non-Time Machine short story I read, etc.

[imeekaye0812.livejournal.com]

Awesome story...:) My kids will love to hear this...Thanks for post!

From the Philippines
Imee
ChooseYourOwnAdventureBooks.org for Kids, Adults and Teachers (http://www.ChooseYourOwnAdventureBooks.org)

these stories bring back memories

[(Anonymous)]

I was a kid of 9 when the Time Machine stories began in Boy's Life in 1959. I didn't know that the series ran for so long; I quit following it by the mid-60s.

Many thanks for putting this together.

- Paul (formerly of Troop 568, BSA, Houston, Texas)

[planettom.livejournal.com]

I made a synopsis here of all the Time Machine stories in BOYS' LIFE, 1959-1989.

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much! I followed the series when I was a kid, and just bought a copy of Mutiny in the Time Machine - right before I discovered your links. It's great to read those old magazines again. Some of the ads are so strange that they're like science fiction themselves.

[james keeline (from livejournal.com)]

I own both of the "Donald Keith" Time Machine books. I have had them both because they are time travel (I made a searchable bibliography of that genre many years ago on TimeTravelLit.com (http://www.TimeTravelLit.com)) and because they are juvenile series books (I have been researching and writing a Series Book Encyclopedia for many years).

As I have been working on the fiction from Boys' Life that was later published in book form, I decided to tackle Time Machine to the Rescue and figure out which stories were used. Here they are, in order:

"The Time Machine Flies Backwards" (Feb 1960; ch 1-3)
"Marco Polo and Our Time Machine" (Oct 1961; ch 3-4)
"Our Time Machine in the Jamboree" (Jul 1960; ch 5)
"The Time Machine Slips a Cog" (Feb 1962; ch 6-8)
"How We Got the Mind-Reading Pills" (Jun 1960; ch 8-10)
"The Time Machine Cracks a Safe" (Jun 1964; ch 11-13)
"Call to Courage" (not a TM story) (Feb 1957; ch 13-14)

The book contains some modified and additional text to make it something of a "fix up" story since many of the short stories are stand-alones.

At this time I suppose that the 4-part serial for "Mutiny in the Time Machine" (Dec 1962-Mar 1963) was the complete content of the book with the same title. I'll check to be sure since there's clearly a lot of manipulation of the story line for the later (and scarcer) book from Putnam.

James D. Keeline