Brownies ...... and Cookies

It’s the end of a season. No, not yet winter. Though the calendar says it’s been spring for two weeks already, it's still hard to believe here in Charlottesville. But, if you know any little girls or their troop leaders, you know that February and March are the Girl Scout Cookie season.
In early February, when I saw posts from my cousin in California, (mother of a brownie) and my friend Melissa (Troop leader of Troop 42 in Charlottesville), I was transported back in time and place to my own Brownie days in Oakville Ontario – more years ago than seem possible.
I was a Brownie for a long time. My mother became Tawny Owl (assistant leader) of our local pack, persuaded by her friend who was Brown Owl. (leader), when I was three or four and I went with her to the weekly meetings as the pack’s “mascot.” What I remember most about those early years is sitting beside the Magic Toadstool by the Magic Pool as the Big Girls danced around me singing their Six Songs at the opening of each meeting

At last I was seven and could become a real Brownie and dance around the, now Mascot-less, toadstool myself. I learned semaphore and how to tie knots and sang the Brownie songs I’d known for years -- but now with my friends.
And once a year we all proudly went door-to-door in our uniforms

to take cookie orders. (Maple creams were my favorite.)
There were Brownies and Guides in Jamaica but, as a teenager, I wasn’t interested. Especially when I found out that the leader of the local troop was my dreaded Math teacher. And, as far as I know, no one sold cookies of any kind to raise money. It was at college in Ohio that I discovered the joys of Thin Mints.
Brownies in college towns have it made. One sweep of the dorms and the entire troop can go to camp – twice!

Melissa’s Troop also has the good fortune to live in a college town. They sell their cookies every Saturday in February and March either in the activity room of the apartment complex where the girls live

(“They’re $3.50 a box but you can get 2 boxes for $7.00!” say the eager Brownies.)

or on The Corner near UVa Grounds (the Campus) where they attract the college crowd, indulgent tourists – and, on one lucky day, Mr Jefferson, himself..

The 21^st century Brownies of Charlottesville are different in many ways from the mid - 20^th century Canadian Brownie that I was. There are no magic toadstools or uniforms. There are different age groups with different names and the youngest, the Daisies, at 5 and 6 are younger than Brownies ever were in my day. The older girls learn about environmental issues and how 911 operates instead of how to tie knots and send semaphore messages -- much more useful. The Daisies learn that they are part of a big international group of girls who are all connected.

But the good deeds are the same.

The promise (slightly modified from the one I knew) is the same.

The love is the same.

And, of course, there will always be the cookies.