Sunday, March 17, 2013

The Value of the Brown and Green

Growing up in Southern California, I was a Brownie and then a Girl Scout from second grade all the way through senior year in high school, in the Santa Anita council.

It was an important part of my life. My older sisters were in scouting, too, and my mother was a leader for many of those years. She was Leader of the Year for our council in 1968 and also worked at a couple of summer camps.

Here's me my first summer at Girl Scout camp. 

My family's summer vacation was always camping for two weeks among the giant Sequoias in Sequoia National Park, so I was accustomed to being able to live simply outdoors.  But our troop did so much more than camp.

Of course, with the era I grew up in, scouting sometimes reinforced traditional roles for girls. I remember learning as a Brownie how to make a hospital corner with a bed sheet, a skill I found fascinating (and hadn't learned at home), and we sewed our own skating skirts when we took roller skating as a group. 


But we also learned about Juliette Gordon Low. We were taught to tie knots, brush and ride a horse at summer camp, sing in harmony, live with dirty knees and hiking boots, and, of course, how to become excellent little sales people when cookie and calendar time came around every year. I even studied judo with my older sister's troop. Despite being decidedly non-militaristic as an adult, I must confess that I loved wearing a uniform and marching (wearing white gloves) in step in parades. 

Being competent and self-reliant was part of the Scouting package and that identity has carried through my life to this day. We also learned to work well with others, to support other females on our team, and we were led by kind, strong women. I never experienced any of the cliquish in fighting that went on among girls in my larger world.

When I was a Senior Scout, our troop volunteered with a disabled girl who needed directed limb exercises. We put on a community pancake breakfast to raise money for some charity. We wore our camp uniforms to meetings: white blouse, green bermuda shorts, and knee socks in a time when girls couldn't even wear pants to school. Over the blouse we had light-blue cotton jackets on which we sewed patches collected from every trip we took.

The picture above shows a happy-but-tearful me being sent off by my troop to my exchange year in Brazil halfway through my senior year in high school. One of the best parts of my year of living with a Brazilian family, attending high school, and learning Portuguese by immersion? You guessed it: being welcomed into an equipe de Guias Bandeirantes, a Girl Scout troop.

In my Local Foods mysteries, a central character is Ellie Kosloski, a plucky 14-year old Girl Scout just entering high school. In the first book, she's working on her Locavore badge -- one of the newest badges  -- and she's volunteering on Cam Flaherty's farm. She ends up being trapped in a near-fatal situation with Cam toward the end and the two work together to forge their escape. We see her mature as the series continues but she continues being a Scout.


I'll admit that when I read about the new Locavore badge, I just had to add Ellie to my series. But it was a natural addition for me who, like many of my author peers, grew up on Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames, strong girls who solved intriguing puzzles. When I informally surveyed a number of crime fiction writers in Sisters in Crime, forty-one reported having been a Girl Scout with only two saying they hadn't. Some who had didn't stay in long, but many said it really formed their self-perception as a person who could do whatever she wanted.

What about you? What childhood experiences shaped your best adult traits? Was scouting part of it?

10 comments:

  1. I still sing the songs that I learned at Girl Scout camp! Also, I think that I can trace my love of hiking and nature right back to those camp days. Looking forward to your book, Edith!

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    1. Yes, in total agreement, Molly! Thanks for sharing your memories.

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  2. Scouting was certainly one of mine, starting with Brownies. Later, with four daughters, I was a scout leader. Great training for young girls.

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    1. Great training, indeed. Thanks for the visit, Jean.

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  3. Not only was I a Scout from 2d grade through high school, a camper, and a camp counselor, I bought GS cookies today!

    And Edith, I dare say, my pictures are way goofier than yours! Although the shot of me in the Bicentennial Parade wearing a faded 1914 (?) uniform -- bloomers and tunic -- is fun!

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    1. Thanks for stopping by, Leslie. My mother once wore a similar costume, from 1920, I think, for my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary.

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  4. Another Browie here. Didn't make it to Girl Scouts, although my Sister did. Our little gal became a pre-Brownie (Daisy) & stayed with it until our fabulous, sewing, crafting, camping leader moved away. I tried to carry on, but am not a fabulous, sewing, crafting, camping type humanoid. But I did organize our fabulous group trip to Savannah & every Scout knows what that means. Was much fun. Thanks from a Guppy/SinC gal, for putting a GS character in your locavore series Edith.
    Great connection to your child days. Lovely post, too.

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  5. I was only a Girl Scout as a kid for two years and then our leader quit and no one else took over, but I did go to Scout camp. However, when my first daughter was in 2nd grade I became a Girl Scout leader and kept the troop for ten years until they were all seniors in high school. Although it was a closed troop with one age level, my younger daughter tagged along when we camping or on trips. My daughters still burst into Girl Scout songs at times. I quit towards the end of their senior year because I was a full time college student then and because they were all so active in other activities that usually I only and 2 or 3 at a time come. During those years we went to summer camp every year and even stayed in cabins at different camps in the winter. We went on trips to Niagara Falls and Washington D.C. and did so many other things. I had to laugh one year when I walked into a writing class I was taking in my last year of college, and one of the students cried out, "Oh my God! It's my Girl Scout leader."

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    1. What great stories, Gloria! Thanks for sharing them. And how awesome that you made time for college at an untraditional time.

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