It’s Girl Scout-cookie season again, which traditionally begins right after deer season, and is followed by Lent.
This is the time of year when words like “Samoas,” “Shortbread Trefoils,” “Do-si-dos,” and “Tagalongs” become household names. A season when many of us transition to wearing sweatpants full-time because we love cookies.
I miss seeing Girl Scouts selling cookies in neighborhoods and supermarkets. A pandemic put a stop to these things, and it’s a shame because I always purchase mass amounts.
Some years ago, two Girl Scout Daisies (kindergarten-age recruits) visited my porch selling cookies. If you’ve never met a Daisy, make it your objective to do so. You will die from cuteness overload.
I told the Daisies that I wanted to buy 100 boxes. I was joking, of course, but they didn’t realize this.
One of the girls had to be revived with cold water. Her friend shouted, “Ohmygosh! Mom! A hundred boxes!”
Whereupon the girl’s mother (this is true) said: “That means we win a pink Cadillac!”
The reason I regularly order cookies is not only
because they’re delicious, but because I believe in these girls. I believe in their values. I believe in their organization. I believe in refined sugar.
My grandmother was a Girl Scout in the early 1920s. My mother was a Girl Scout. My wife was a Girl Scout Brownie—which is the same as a regular Scout, except they don’t file income taxes.
The Girl Scouts represent one of the finest institutions this country has ever produced, and that’s not an opinion. Take, for example, troop leader Miss Emma Hall.
In 1913, during an era of flagrant racism, Miss Emma’s “Red Rose Troop,” in New Bedford, Massachusetts, was welcoming African-American Girl Scouts into its group. And keep in mind, this was happening seven years before American women had the right to vote; and 50 years before public schools would be integrated.
I’m telling you, these girls…