'Once A Girl Scout, Always A Girl Scout'

Around the time when my parents discovered I was practicing for my future career as a journalist interviewing bums down by the Soo-Line tracks, they correctly surmised that I would probably benefit from safer, supervised  activities. I was 9 years old, so I joined the Girl Scouts.

Troop 3 was a brand new troop at my school. We met every Wednesday afternoon in the basement of West School in Des Plaines. Our troop leader was a hippie chick named Martha Kahle. Although a large woman who resembled a big comfy couch, she was as graceful as a willow. She was the only adult whom I ever addressed by her first name.

Many Wednesdays I watched Martha from my classroom window trudging across the school playground laden with shopping bags full of materials for whatever eclectic art project our troop would be working on that afternoon. Once we filled whiskey decanters with bubble bath and decorated them with mesh and ribbons to give our mothers for Mother’s Day, prompting my mother to ask, “wherever did Martha get all these whiskey bottles?”

I adored Martha. She immediately pegged me as “hyperkinetic.” All it took for me to cease with whatever nonsense I was engaged in was one of her raised eyebrows or a witty wisecrack. She liked me, too, probably because she didn’t have to raise me.

Before long under Martha’s patient guidance, my fellow scouts and I grew adept at making Girl Scout stew—a concoction involving ground beef and Campbell soup—which we cooked over an open campfire in the Cook County Forest Preserves. Martha taught us Indian love calls and how to identify wildlife potentially infected with rabies.

I recall one horrifying field trip to a local nursing home that should have been condemned, where we traipsed the halls singing our Girl Scout songs to sick, lonely elderly people. We left in tears and asked Martha why in the world she would subject us to such misery?

“To teach you about life,” she snapped back.

In many ways, Martha resembled the founder of Girl Scouts of America, Juliette Gordon Low. Like Low, Martha believed that a woman could do anything a man could do—whether that was raising a family, competing in a triathlon or pursuing a career.

Tonight (March 12), Girl Scouts from Oak Lawn and throughout the Southland will gather at Westfield-Chicago Ridge Mall for a Promise Circle. The event is one of thousands of Promise Circles taking place around the country tonight celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts of America. It was on March 12, 1912, when Low gathered 18 girls to register for the first “Girl Guides” troop in Savannah, GA.

Local scouts will recite the Girl Scout Promise and Law, followed by the singing of “Make New Friends.” We hear that Oak Lawn scouts are also planning a “flash mob.”

In addition, girls and women who have ever been Girl Scouts, including as a Brownie, are encouraged to wear a green lapel ribbon during Girl Scout Week from March 11 through March 17. Former scouts are invited to reconnect to the organization by registering as a member of the Girl Scouts alumnae association.

So to all the Oak Lawn Girl Scouts from Black Oaks Service Unit 638 and their leaders, I salute you. I hope you have better luck making change for your cookie sales than I did.

And to Martha Kahle, who took a smart-ass 9-year-old and set her on the path to womanhood—thank you.

Beginning at 6 p.m. Monday, March 12, girls will gather at Westfield-Chicago Ridge Mall (95th Street and Ridgeland Avenue). At 7:12 p.m. they will recite the Girl Scout Promise and Law, and sing the traditional "Make New Friends" Girl Scout song. Former Girl Scouts are also invited to receive a green lapel ribbon