HOW RIDICULOUS I WAS AND STILL AM

This morning, I took a bite of a Thin Mint Girl Scout cookie in order to help take me back to my scouting days. Okay, I took more than a bite. I ate a few. Exactly how many, I’m not saying, but I had to. How else could I write about the Girl Scout stuff I found?

Mmmm...me with a box of Girl Scout cookies today

The front of my Girl Scout folder

Girl Scouts. It seems so long ago now that I practically forget that chapter in my life. But how could I? I was in it for seven years, earned countless badges and my sister and I were the cookie-selling champs of our troupe.  Not only that, I learned valuable things like how to build a campfire, whittle sticks with a jackknife, tie knots, use a bandana in eleven different and mostly useless ways and, of course, make a buddy burner for use in a vagabond stove upon which you can bake a muffin in the wilderness in just twenty minutes. How could I possibly have survived without this essential leadership training?

My Brownie and Junior Girl Scout handbook

My membership card

My seventh grade school picture, the last year I was in Girl Scouts

“On my honor, I will try: To serve God, my country and mankind, and to live by the Girl Scout Law.” At each and every meeting and camp out, we recited that promise with the first three fingers of our right hands aloft. The secret Girl Scout handshake, by the way, is done with the left hand while the right hand is in this awkward, three finger position. But don’t tell anyone I gave you this insider information. 

What did saying that promise over and over again do for me—other than reinforce patriarchy? Fortunately, today’s Girl Scouts say “help people at all times” instead of “serve mankind.” Now that I think about it, the premise is quite admirable. It’s about being respectful, honest and ready to serve the community. And I can’t ever leave a place without following the Girl Scout motto: Leave a place cleaner than you found it.

A drawing from the handbook. I notice how multi-racial they were, especially for way back then.

My well-worn badge book

I suppose what I remember most about Girl Scouts is how zealous I was to earn badges. I became a total badge-earning junkie. In fact, I wish I could find my over-badged sash. It would be fun to see again. It’s probably in the basement and if I keep up the archeological dig, I'll find it. But what was the drive behind earning those badges? What’s so great about achievement anyway? I am still hooked on it and perhaps my Girl Scouting days set the stage for it.

What I find interesting as I sift through my badge book is that I didn’t even do them well. I slapped the projects together and did as little as I could get away with. It wasn’t about quality for me, it was about quantity. Get more badges—that’s all that matters! I’m trying to deprogram myself from that mentality. It’s good to look back at this stuff and laugh at myself, though. At least I realize how ridiculous I was and still am. 

Here's a sample page from the badge book showing the requirements to earn a particular badge. Yep. I earned the Storyteller Badge.

My family timeline, created for a badge project. Click to see it larger. Note that the final, exciting event documented here is that I got a gerbil!

A notecard with the lyrics to a song I wrote called "Animals." There were several of these cards in my folder, so I must have made a set to teach the song to my troupe. This one is in my mom's handwriting. Obviously, I solicited help from her as I always did. I'm sure it was her idea to put them on 3x5 cards.

From a badge project report about dolls. This is a list of my own dolls, their names and a little about each one.

The rest of the doll list

A multimedia collage of knots I'd learned at a Girl Scout campout

In any case, the Thin Mints taste great and now that I've reviewed it in the Girl Scout handbook, I might just cook myself a muffin on a vagabond stove while singing the Brownie Smile Song.