Happy 100th Birthday, Girl Scouts!

It's the Girl Scout Jubilee, the anniversary of the founding of the now-largest organization for girls by Juliette Gordon Low!

Interestingly, I vividly remember getting in trouble during a third-grade math lesson for reading a biography of Juliette Gordon Low that I'd just gotten during library time!  (Honestly, I think it was the only time I got called out by name in class in school ever.  It was a great series of biographies, particularly of childhood, of Americans, in the early 1970s, with the long lists of people in both front and back flyleafs; I read all the ones on women--Dorothea Dix, Juliette Gordon Low, Julia Ward Howe, Mary Todd Lincoln, Louisa May Alcott, even Sacagawea, albeit a Native American, etc etc.  Possibly Childhood of Famous Americans series (here and here).).

As you know, I was a Girl Scout for years, from Brownie through Senior, plus camp counseling at Girl Scout camp Mira Sol for children with special needs outside of San Antonio, and am so grateful for my experiences.  I loved earning badges, going to swap meets and other programs, and selling cookies (back when they were 75 cents a box . . . and I still only ever sold about 75, compared to Sis's 300+), only stopping when my troop dissolved (not knowing anything about Gold Star or other programs).  But camp had to be, by far, my favorite Girl Scout activity.  I started at day camp and then moved to my first, two-night, sleepover camp at Camp Robinwood outside of Houston.  Singing, s'mores, crafts, swimming.  I loved it. Later, I went to week-long camps at Camp Agnes Arnold and Camp Casa Mare, where we did outdoor experiments, canoeing, theater arts, and all manner of wonderful things.  I loved packing for camp, then setting up my cot with mosquito netting and sleeping bag (usually my blue, Holly Hobbie-esque Joan Walsh Anglund one), getting mail from Gommie (who always packed one and left one with the counselors so I always had mail), going to the camp store for t-shirts and pillowcases, making friends with my bunkmates, having crushes on the counselors (most memorably, Jo, at Casa Mare.  I should have known.  And now I can read about other lesbian scout experiences in On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect on Their Scouting Experience by Nancy Manahan).  That doesn't begin to touch on the arts (tie-dye, wax candles, telephone wire jewlery), the songs (oh, my favorite part was signing around the campfire and I remember them all!), the food (campfire cooking, plus I even liked the cafeteria food!).  Being a counselor, for three or four summers at Mira Sol (I was also a counselor at a Boy Scout camp and also at a YMCA day camp, both for special needs), was just wonderful, really an extension of my own camping, because we mentored in pairs or small groups and did all the activities with our campers (who were only a few years younger than I was in early adolescence), and then got to socialize with other counselors during afternoon rest and at night.  Even when we were flooded and had to evacuate as the Guadalupe River rose, it was great and thrilling.   I wish I could go back to camp now.

And so I am now a leader for Sis's Daisy troop (they didn't have Daisies way back when), just like Gommie was for me for a few years (for my thoughts on Boy Scouts, see here and here.  Briefly, homophobic, theocratic Boy Scouts stink.)  We've done arts and crafts, singing, field trips, community service, and explorations of different activities, like yoga and (soon) letterboxing and horseback riding, plus, of course, cookie sales.  Sis has even gone to day camp and will go again this summer.  I can't wait to continue Scouting with her and hope she stays in it for years, as long as it is a rewarding and interesting experience for her (and not just because I love it, though it will be bittersweet if she wants to stop before I do!).

So, happy birthday, Girl Scouts and thanks for the memories in the past and the ones Sis and I are making now!

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(Support your local Girl Scouts by buying cookies--send a message to Rep. Bob Morris of Indiana, and other hardcore Republicans, who have an untrue, even creepy view that Girl Scouts promote the sexualization and lesbianism of girls and are a gateway to Planned Parenthood. Seriously?  What is it with Republicans and their obsession with sex?  Like Rush Limbaugh wanting to watch??  Ugh.  But more on that another time.)