Girl Scouts
I hate to sound Corny, but Girl Scouts was one of the best institutions that I ever got involved in. I started in Brownies and we met every week at Noelle’s house in town. We made Sit-a-pons, received pen pals (that I kept for many years) sang about Alice the Camel and played I Give this Shoe. I made a lot of friends through the Scouts. Most of them were people in my grade that I knew but this made them my “friends.”
We bridged up to Girl Scouts and that’s when my short Scouting career really sky rocketed. I was a badge earning lunatic. I would go through my badge book and my Mom and I would do what ever it took t o earn them all. Of course the horse ones were my favorite and the science group were the ones that I steered clear of. I remember going to the YMCA to earn my swimming badges and on one occasion they asked the girls in the troops to design a badge. My friend Michele won that contest. It was a little campfire she had drawn. We were very proud.
I always sold a LOT of cookies every year too. My dad would bring the order form to work and everyone would buy them. One year, my mom was in charge of cookies. The head cookie woman for our district was just down our road, so Mom and I climbed into the Station Wagon and went to pick up our troops’ supply. We carried them all into the living room and divided them up to each girl (finally finding a use for those large brown grocery bags the commesary used) and then they picked them up from us. We couldn’t use our living room for days!
My first experience with Girl Scout camp was great. We went as a troop to Camp GlenGara in Camden, NY. We had a great time. We learned to canoe, put on skits by the camp fire, learned new songs, swam with those little caps on our heads, and hiked through the woods (which if you have been paying attention, you know that the woods is my favorite place to be). We made walking sticks and widdled wood. Learned about Moss, and ate from our mess kits.
Unfortunately I had such a good time that my mother made me go back for a week long stint once summer came around. I was a shy little girl, so going off to camp alone with a bunch of girls I did not know had me very stressed out. It turned out Chris Sanford was going too and somehow we were aloud to tent together. It was her, another little girl and myself. The first night was funny. I laid down in my sleeping bag and lifted the foot of it with my feet and then let it drop down on the wire cot. Chrissy was scared to death. I told her must be raccoons! I did that for a little while, and eventually she caught on.
As horrified as I was with the idea of going to camp...my Mother was right, and I hated that. It was the best experience of my young life thus far. We did a lot of the same things. Canoeing, swimming in the lake, skits and songs (rise and shine, kick out the morning glory). But I also learned how to set up my own tent, how to make M & M pancakes (which is the only way that I will eat them now), I learned about safe camp fire building, to clean up after myself and I drafted my first letter home to Mom and Dad.
Our Counselors name (nickname that is) was Liver. That was cool enough for me, so she was going to be OK. We were looking for firewood one morning and we found a little kitten. We took it to Liver and she took care of it. I don’t remember what she ended up doing with it, but she carried it around for a while. Liver is also the person responsible for my M & M pancake fetish. She taught us to make them and that was all I needed to know about breakfast. That by far was the best and worst life lesson ever.... I learned what I had known all along, that you could add Chocolate to every meal!
When we were off one night learning to survive in the wilderness I had an experience that I am still convinced did actually happened. I was setting up our tent and I swear on my life that a mosquito flew into my ear, went all the way in and never came back out. I was sure that if Chrissy had looked into my eyes she would have seen it fly past like I was Tom the Cartoon cat. I heard it all night long buzzing in my ear. It never did fly back out. It’s probably feasting on my brain as I sit here today.
Scouts purpose is to create well round young women and they always find a way of sneaking a lesson worth learning into the fun. I learned something very important about life that weekend and I always think of when I hear anyone speak of the food chain. We had gathered in the field where our parents were going to arrive later to pick us up. We were each given a category name and we were to be that thing. I was a grasshopper. Then we played a game kind of like tag, only we had to catch each other in the order of the food chain. They were teaching us with this exercise about the food chain and it worked, because it has always stuck with me. As I grew older and learned about Darwinism I sometimes twist the two theories together. I tend to get lost. Are the events that happen in this world today; The food chain in action or is it Survival of the Fittest.
When our week was finally done I, who was very reluctant to even go, didn’t really want to leave that badly. However I was very happy when my parents showed up to bring me home. And the best part was still yet to come. Before I had left, we had been to dealer after dealer looking for a pickup trucks. When I left, it was still up in the air. It was a toss up between a Chevy with a horse decal down by the running boards or a Brown F100. Of course the horse one would be the obvious choice for me, you would think anyways. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it to you yet, but Brown is my favorite color. See everything in life that was great was brown, my dog, my rabbit, pretty horses, teddy bears and yes, chocolate! So that was my choice. The Brown Ford. When my folks picked me up in Camden that day, they arrived in the brand new brown F100. I was very excited. My dad had finally gotten a nice new truck like he wanted and he picked the one that I wanted! (That is a pattern that was only beginning to form at that point)
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