Yesterday morning when I put in my hearing aids, the right one was dead silent. Usually that means that the wax ring on the speaker has become blocked with ear wax, and sure enough that was the case.  But after I replaced it, the silence remained, which meant that most likely I had a speaker problem.  As a result, early in the afternoon I visited our nearby (less than a mile away) hearing-aid provider.  From one to two each afternoon, you can drop by their office for consultations without having an appointment.

Bill and I have had our hearing aids long enough that when we purchased them rechargeable ones weren’t an option, so we’re stuck with using tiny batteries.  Those used to come in easy-to-open packaging.  Now they come in “child-proof” packets that can only be opened by using a box-cutter, a screw driver, and a possibly pair of pliers!

But batteries aren’t the only problem with our current older-model, matching sets of hearing aids. Eventually the speakers wear out. The last time I went in for a speaker replacement, I discovered that our hearing-aid provider no longer keeps our model of speaker in stock which meant I had to wait for two weeks for a replacement to arrive.  They provided me with an interim speaker, but still having to make two trips was a pain.  So I said to myself, “Judy, why don’t you just order an extra pair of speakers and have them on hand the next time?”  And that’s what I did.  Yesterday, when the audiologist told me I needed a new speaker, I simply reached into my magic purse which, like my mother’s, contains a little bit of everything, and pulled out my handy-dandy packet of new hearing aid speakers.  Voila!  No two week wait!

When I came home, I explained what had happened, telling Bill that he was lucky to be married to a former Girl Scout, because Girl Scouts are always prepared.  But that bit of dialogue sent my mind spiraling down a memory hole that kept me awake for over an hour last night, because I really was a Girl Scout from Brownies in second grade all the way up to Senior Scouts during my last year of high school.  During that entire time, our troop had the same set of leaders—Rose Bennett and Laverne Williams—whose respective daughters were a year older than I was.

You may remember that in the lobby of Joanna Brady’s sheriff’s department there’s a wall displaying portraits of all the sheriffs, including Joanna.  The pictures of her predecessor are all professionally taken, stern-faced, formal portraits.  Joanna’s features a fair-haired little girl pulling a wagonload of Girl Scout cookies.  Turns out that’s exactly how I sold Girl Scout cookies, dragging them door-to-door in our family’s Radio Flyer Wagon.  Decades later, when I was applying for a job selling life insurance, the man interviewing me asked if I’d ever sold anything. I told him,  “I sold Girl Scout cookies and All-Occasion Greeting Cards.  Do those count?”  Evidently they did because he hired me, and I spent the next ten years selling life insurance.

One of the first craft projects in Brownies was making Sit Upons.  That consisted of taking two squares of vinyl, stitching three sides together with yarn and then stuffing the resulting pocket with cotton before stitching up the final side.  My pieces of vinyl were bright red.  The yarn was white.  The stitches on side one were fairly even. On sides two and three they became somewhat sloppier.  On side four there were barely enough stitches to hold the cotton inside.  Mine had to have been one of the ugliest Sit Upons ever made 

Decades passed before that unfortunate piece of handiwork resurfaced, this time in a book called Paradise Lost where Joanna’s daughter, Jenny, takes her Sit Upon along on an overnight campout.  While on tour for that book, I was doing a Sunday afternoon speaking event at a bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky, when a cell phone began to ring.  Unfortunately the ringing phone happened to be the one stowed in my bra. There was nothing to do but it but to take it out. ,When I looked at it, I saw my parents’ phone number. 

My mother was in her eighties by then, and I usually spoke to her every Sunday afternoon. “It’s my mother,” I told the audience.  “I need to take this.”

“Where are you?” Evie immediately wanted to know.

“I’m in Louisville, Kentucky, doing a book signing,” I answered.

“Well,” she went on. “It’s a good thing I saved your Sit Upon all these years.  Otherwise you wouldn’t have anything to write about!”

A few weeks later, back home in Seattle, I was asked to do a Girl Scout breakfast fund-raiser at the Sheraton Hotel.  Knowing I’d be speaking to Girl Scout leaders as well as Girl Scouts themselves, I spent a good deal of time working on what I would say, because I wanted my talk to be inspirational. 

Bill and I arrived at the hotel early and were ushered into the ballroom before most of the guests had arrived. Walking through the massive room, I noticed that there was a copy of Paradise Lost as the centerpiece on each table. When we arrived at ours, I chose a seat directly in front of the lectern, allowing me to watch as the room filled up with people.  Most of the tables were occupied by Girl Scouts and their respective leaders, but the table directly in front of ours was full of suit-clad men—clearly guys representing major donors.  While I was looking on, one of those reached across his table, picked up the centerpiece book, glanced at the flap copy, and then returned the book to the table, putting it back somewhat disdainfully—the same way someone might put down an object thought to be covered with cooties.  Remember those?

That’s the point where I tossed out my prepared speech.  When I stepped up to the microphone, I said. “I’d like to begin by sharing the first thing I learned in Brownies”  And then with my hand to my chest, I sang:

I have something in my pocket

It belongs up on my face,

I keep it very close at hand

In a most important place

I’m sure you couldn’t guess it

If you guessed a long, long while,

So I’ll take it out and put it on

It’s a great big Brownie smile.

By the time I finished that one, the whole room was singing along with me—except for the guys at the big donor table, that is.

My dad hated tomatoes.  As a consequence I thought I hated tomatoes, too.  But as a senior scout while at a camp called Rancho Risco in New Mexico, Rose and Laverne took us on an eight-mile hike. At the four-mile mark we were all hot and thirsty and tired. That’s when Rose reached into her back pack and passed out what she’d brought along—a perfectly ripe and juicy tomato for each of us. Mine was delicious, and I’ve loved tomatoes ever since.  At the breakfast, after telling that story, I sang the following song:

Girl Scouts together, that is our song

Winding the old trail, rocky and long.

Learning our motto, living our creed.

Girls Scouts together in every good deed.

As before everybody joined in—except for the guys at the donor table who, by then, were looking a bit disgruntled.

I don’t remember which other stories I told, but at one point, I divided the ballroom into three sections and we sang the familiar round about friends:

Make new friends but keep the old

One is silver and the other gold.

Then at the very end of my talk and just before I returned to my seat, I held up my right hand  with three fingers showing and we all recited the Girl Scout Pledge.

On my honor I will try to do my duty to God and country; to help other people at all times, and to obey the Girl Scout Law.

I don’t remember whether or not the men at that next table stood for the standing ovation that followed, but I can tell you that all the girls and their leaders did, and that was the whole point.

PS  At some point after I started writing books and at a book signing event in Bisbee, Laverne Williams, my former Scout leader  turned up as did my mother.  Laverne was Bisbee’s mayor at the time and my mother was … well … Evie.  Having both those strong-willed women in the same signing line at the same time was something to behold!