Fourth Generation Girl Scout

After devoting a large chunk of the past 72 hours to things Girl Scout, I just logged onto a GS alumnae page and set up an account. It asked me what generation girl scout I am, and since my mom was a scout, I put, 2nd.

Which means, this little girl?


Third Fourth-generation girl scout.

(After posting this, my Grandma informed me that she had been a Scout too. I didn't know that! So I am actually a third-gen Girl Scout, and Nutmeg is Fourth.)
Kinda cool, isn't it? That picture was taken Friday night, when her troop held a little ceremony to bridge the girls from Daisies to Brownies. She's wearing her brownie sash for the first time. See the blue daisy vest in her arm? Headed for the lucite case in Mother's Trophy Room. (AKA the crawl space.)

Not only was Friday evening dedicated to me choking back tears while jostling with other parents for the best photo angles, I mean, scouting, but today was all about the scouting as well. We drove to Wisconsin to visit the Girl Scout Camp that Nutmeg will be attending this summer. Just two nights, but still.

My baby is going to CAMP!



Girl Scout Camp produced some of the most positive memories of my childhood. Since I was not popular socially at school, I relished the chance to start fresh summers and make at least temporary friends. I had read lots of books set at camps so I came prepared -- a little too prepared -- with contraband candy, Mad-Libs and lists of practical jokes, most of which we fortunately never pulled off. I still sing the songs I learned at camp all the time, like Linstead Market, which I just found out is Jamaican. I always pictured it being an Alaskan Eskimo singing for some reason. Sometimes I even sing the one terribly un-PC song where you are supposed to pull your eyes into a slant as one of the hand motions. Nutmeg won't be singing that one at camp because it's been removed from the Girl Scout song book, but too late, it's part of my psyche and I'll never be able to forget it, because it's so dang catchy. (Tangent: This one time, in China? A Chinese kid came up to us and pulled their eyes and mouth wide open to make fun of US

In my later years of Girl Scout Camp, I went to a session where we went horseback riding, and I made some good friends and we arranged to share a platform tent together the next year, and wrote each other letters. It was a big thing for me, both the riding of horses and the making of friends.

So when we pulled into the camp to tour it today, I expected to be flooded with memories. In reality, nothing looked all that familiar. Never mind, I had a wonderful time watching Nutmeg's excitement grow as she made and ate a s'more, visited the cabin where she's be sleeping in bunks, and chatted with some counselors. She'll be going along with her best friend, and I just reveled in the way she held her friend's hand in the beginning and introduced the both of them to the counselor who asked their names.

The lodge looked familiar, yet not. I found out that an entire section had been added in recent years, which explained that.

Then I went home and started Googling, and I soon realized that this was not the exact same place where my Girl Scout camp had taken place. I had noticed that the names were different, but I thought that it had just been changed because my camp had an Indian name and the mascotization of the Native American stuff is not so popular these days.

But on a map, I saw that they are actually two different camps, six miles apart. They're on two different lakes. I found some photos of my camp, which looked much more familiar and brought back more memories.

We probably did take a long hike at some point to that lodge, so it makes sense that this would look familiar to me.

No matter. To my newly minted Brownie, everything was fresh and new, and she came away bounding with excitement for her return visit. Can you imagine, that my little baby is going away to camp?

She's not worried about it at all. And honestly, neither am I. Let the camp games begin!