Girl Scouts are like, totally radical, dude.

Well, apparently it's a lot harder to keep up on this thing than I thought!  But the strangest part is that I have had so many ideas running through my brain about what I want to write about, I found myself avoiding this thing all week long just because I didn't want to have to start sorting through them all and making a decision on where to start.  I actually found myself having a hard time falling asleep last week because I was laying in my bed counting Blog Titles instead of sheep...



I don't know how many people reading this were ever in the Boy or Girl Scouts, but growing up, being part of the Girl Scouts was actually a huge part of my life from about age 6 until 13.   Maybe it was the fact that the older you got, the more colorful and "cool" your vest had the potential of becoming, or the fact that I had a never-ending rivalry with another girl in my troop and I just HAD to have more badges than her......oooor maybe it was just those damn cookies...but it was a pretty big deal. 


The reason this has been on my mind is that I recently had to write a reference for a friend who was applying to be a camp counselor at a GS camp near the D.C. area.  It brought back so many memories of all my summers at Camp Ehawee, and I started to feel nostalgic.  I think I almost convinced myself I was writing the reference from a tent in Sacagewea during "Me Time".  And then this morning, I saw this article from Addictinginfo.org:


http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/02/22/indiana-republican-rep-says-girl-scouts-are-bent-on-communism-lesbianism-and-destroying-america/


The headline reads:

Indiana Republican Rep Says Girl Scouts Are ‘Bent On Communism, Lesbianism And Destroying America’

I think I have finally figured out what it is about these kinds of Republicans: They spend so much time blaming the "destruction of America" on the LGBTQ community, "socialists" & "communists", Obama, and Planned Parenthood not because they actually believe any of this, but because they want to make as many distractions as they can before people start to say "Hey.. wait...a...minute....YOU'RE DESTROYING AMERICA!"
Whoa, sorry. I did not want this to become a political rant because I really do enough of that on my Facebook page, but this article infuriated me.  Really hate to burst this guy's white, elitist and heterosexual bubble, but I don't have a single memory from my 8 summers at camp involving the development of communist ideals, activities trying to convince me I liked the other girls in my camp session romantically, or anything having to do with changing my religious beliefs (in the article, he makes an argument that only 3 of the 50 Girl Scout role models have Christian backgrounds...therefore implying that they are the only true role models).  I can tell you what I did get out of those summers:

Leadership skills
People skills
Communication skills
Development of my hobbies and interests
Survival skills
Sunburns and embarrassing tan lines from wearing socks with sandals
Physical (not emotional) scars

Friendships - In fact, I met one of my best friends from middle school at camp when we did a Biking session at the same time.  Later, I moved to her hometown and she was one of the only people I knew, which when you are entering the 6th grade can be a huge relief since I think I speak for all of us when I say middle school is a bitch - especially for girls....(because we're bitchy). Here we are :)

I remember, Kye, the counselor who carried me from the pool house to the nurse's office when I stepped on an earring that got lodged into the heel of my foot.

I remember that Mork was always there summer after summer keeping everything running like clockwork.
I remember Thudd, the canoe guy and one of the only male counselors and how all of us girls would swoon whenever he came into the mess hall-- yep, whole lot of lesbianism going on there.

My favorite counselor was Goldie, and I remember that she was from Cashton.
I learned how to make pudgie pies and banana boats, and I learned the difference between wood ticks and deer ticks.

I remember that while I got along with almost everyone, there were a handful of crazy girls at camp too, and I'm certain it had nothing to do with their sexual orientation or political ideologies.  I went on a Houseboating session my last summer at camp and that was when I first learned that people will make up a lot of stories about themselves when they are starving for attention.  Another summer, there was a girl that needed some serious mental health evaluations who tried hitting another girl in the back of the head with a flashlight.  Later in the week, she also ran around swinging a broom at the rest of us.  Like I said -- there was some cause for concern.

Girl Scouts most definitely made me become a different kind of person than I would have been had I never participated, but contrary to this Indiana senator's skewed and bigoted belief, by no means did it form my sexual identity or convince me that communism is great.  Like all other human beings, I didn't choose to be straight and there's no way that singing camp songs or learning how to canoe was an attempt to brainwash me into believing that capitalism is evil and societies should be classless.
Now that I think about it, Republicans do a good enough job convincing me of that on their own.