A Year of Blogging: March 12, 2011

Today is Girl Scouts Day. The first Girl Scout group was created on March 12, 1912. It seems everyone has a story about being a Scout (either Girl or Boy, depending on your gender). At least here in the US. I was a Brownie, which is one of the younger age groups. Girls in Kindergarten or First Grade can be Daisies. Those in Second or Third Grade are Brownies. Fourth and Fifth graders are Junior Girl Scouts (although, I think that may be a new addition. I remember it as Daisies, Brownies, and Girl Scouts). Brownies wear brown. We had meetings, just like the big Girl Scouts. We went to day camp. And most importantly- we sold cookies! I always rocked the cookie sale. There are advantages to having a big family. Dad called his brothers & sisters, and told them I would be at Grandma's that weekend. If they couldn't come, they'd give us their order by phone. The great thing in our family is that even though there are 8 granddaughters, the oldest one is 5 years older than me, then there are two who are four years older, the next one is two years older, then me, my sister two years younger, and then the other two are 7 and 9 years younger than me. So when I was a Brownie, no one else was in Girl Scouts. I had the family to myself! I also had an Uncle and a Father with a weakness for Thin Mints. They were each good for a case of Thin Mints. Yes, a whole case. This was before Dad was diabetic. We'd fill the sheet, and then my dad took it to work. We had the same kind of thing at his work that we had in the family- others had daughters who were either older or younger, but there wasn't a lot of competition. Which made up for the competition we had in our small town. I still hit my neighborhood, but most of it was done through the family and Mom & Dad's work. I routinely filled several order forms. We did not sit at a store and wait for people to come to us. We hit the pavement, took orders, then the troop master submitted the orders to Girl Scouts. We waited a while for the order to come in, and then we hit the pavement again, delivering the cookies and collecting money. I remember mom storing cases of cookies in every spare corner of the house- including her bedroom. It was a lot of work. I am not proud of this, but I quickly tired of Brownies. I went to Camp Is-Sho-Da in the summer. I wasn't into hiking, playing games, and all that outdoor stuff. I've never been interested in camping, and Girl Scout camp was no different. The end of my Brownie career came after one of our meetings. It was in the winter. We met at the Firehouse in town. Our troop leader rolled out large rolls of brown paper, like the grocery bags. We partnered up, and each of us had to lie on the paper while our partner drew our outline. Then we switched, and had to draw the outline of our partner. I do not remember why we were doing this. I am sure there was some purpose, to teach us something great. I, at the age of 8 or so, found it to be incredibly lame. I went home and told my Mom that I had better things to do with my time than to draw my outline on a paper bag. Yeah, I was a bit precocious. Mom made me finish out the year, since she had already paid the fees and we had the outfit. But then I was allowed to quit, or not go back another year. My sister was much more successful in Girl Scouts. She joined Girl Scouts in Third or Fourth Grade. She stayed in for a few years. Her uniforms were the green we are more familiar with. She attended the weekly meetings, marched with her troop in the parades, and of course, rocked the cookie sale. I celebrated Girl Scouts Day the best way possible today. Some local Brownies were set up at Lowe's. When we walked out of the store, they looked bored. It was mostly men coming out of the store, and they weren't giving the little girls any attention. The little girls saw us and asked 'Would you like to buy some cookies?' and their faces lit up in surprise when I said 'Yes, I would!'. We bought two boxes of Samoas (as I have already finished off the previous two boxes) and two of Thin Mints. The moms were wonderful- they made the girls take our order, give us the cookies, and figure out the total. The girls also took the money and thanked us. I say this is wonderful because the cookie sale is supposed to teach girls lessons. I have seen mothers who do all the calculating and all the work, and just use the girls as the cute faces to get you to the table. I prefer to see the girls do most of the work. The Brownie who was helping us paused a minute as she figured up how much four boxes was, but she did it. As we walked to the car, I told Erich 'I love helping the Girl Scouts'. He laughed and said 'Yeah, right. You like the cookies!'