There will be much green about this week; it is a big-time green wearing anniversary all year long, but especially this month, especially this week, especially TODAY. That's right, I'm talking about the Girl Scouts.
According to Girl Scout legend, 100 years ago today, on March 12 1912, Juliet Lowe gathered together 18 girls & founded the first Girl Scout Troop bases on the Boy Scouts/Girl Guides model of the Baden-Powells but much more girl-centric. Here in the US anyhow, Girl Scouts is not a female but an organization in it's own right (I am not trying to put down the Girl Guides, I just see them as a kind of little sister sorority to the more important fraternity of Boy Scouts, ironic really as the Girl Scout Troop of which I was a member had a companion Boy Scout Troop using the same facilities & this is not often the case).
There are celebrations planned all across the country. In the town my parents live in, the local museum has en exhibit of Girl Scouts past & present (& I truly wish I lived closer as I would love to go), closer to where I live now they must be doing something (I saw them in uniform, mobilizing in front of the grocery store just a couple days ago), but alas in the land of football & hunting, Girl Scouts don't get much press. Too bad, because there are few enough places where a girl can be a girl without boys taking over (& again I am not knocking boys, but lets face it testosterone being what it is, once a group of boys is anywhere it is hard for anyone else to get anything else done; a group of girls in the same space ignoring them would be untenable).
So I guess I just wanted to say Thank You Girl Scouts. I spent years happily part of Troop 27 in West Hartford, CT; a troop now long defunct I'm afraid. I remember the year I sold enough cookies to go to Camp Timber Trails. As I aged out of the program, I actually had the thought that I would miss it more than I knew & I was right.
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