Just some thoughts as I browse through the “shop” section of the Girl Scouts of the USA site.

• There is a big flower on the Daisy tunic now! And what’s this? A Daisy VEST? Nooooo! They wear tunics! For some reason they even sell a set of iron-on petals…that can’t be because they still sell plain tunics, can it? Nah, it’s for the hand-me-down tunics, I guess. Oh, and for when a Daisy’s petals fall off.
• Brownies are wearing brown again, that’s good. But it’s paired with powder blue. When I was a Brownie, we wore brown and ORANGE and we LIKED it! Can’t beat THAT for classic 70’s/80’s style. But what’s this?! NO FLASHES?? Those were SO COOL when I was a Brownie, I really wanted flashes for my socks! At least the Brownies aren’t wearing that floral pattern anymore. God that was awful…I think it was the late 90’s when they came up with that one?
• I’m not sure that the green of Juniors is quite as IN YOUR FACE as it used to be. Man, we wore BRIGHT green.
• Khaki? Older girls wear khaki now? Blue was so nice! But, erm…what is an ambassador?
• Adult uniform stuff is just as boring as always. Oh well.

Before you think this is some new thing that I’m obsessing with, I’d like to note that I was obsessing over Girl Scout uniforms back in November 2001 when I wrote this article.

They say that olfactory memories are the strongest kind of memory - that a smell can trigger a memory better than anything else. That’s certainly true of the perfume A bought yesterday, because as soon as I smelled it I was reminded of the Girl Scout camp I attended for several years as a kid.

I was tickled to find that Camp Conowingo has a website now, with photos and tiny movie clips. There is even a picture of the chimney, which was the source of ghost stories when I was a camper. Reportedly a woman who lived in the house during the Civil War had fled when troops were approaching, and she stuffed her baby up into the chimney. The soldiers subsequently lit a fire in the fireplace and…well, it was a rather gruesome story! We insisted that we could still hear the baby wailing, because the chimney was all that remained of the home. The pictures of the dining hall show that it hasn’t changed a bit since I was there! The movie clips are pretty bad; they look like they were taken by a cell phone.

The images of the creek and lake were surprising, though - I could have sworn the lake was much bigger, and the creek was an uncrossable river! I haven’t thought about Camp Conowingo in a long time - that was a fun trip down memory lane.