Me on Monday

I came across something kinda' cute--my Camp Fire bead log. It was a 3-ring binder that was divided by categories and used to keep track of all the beads I earned. 

Binders weren't cute when I was a kid--no nonsense, ugly blue with a texture. I dolled it up with a Camp Fire Girls sticker.

Here are a couple of pages taken from the binder:

I was 11 years old when I made these entries.

Apparently, my mother--who had to approve my entries disagreed that I had kept myself neat and clean for a month. 

I guess I did better this particular month because I earned the bead!

Uh oh! I must have slacked off again! One thing's for sure, I didn't get the bead if I didn't earn it. But come on, I was eleven. What does neat and clean even mean at that age?

My mother sewed the beads on to my vest:

I can still remember some things: the patches on the left were for selling candy--hence my love for Russell Stover chocolates. The boxes were $2.00. I wanted it so bad that I figured I'd use my allowance to pay for a box. Well, the problem was that my allowance was 25 cents a week. That means I needed 8 weeks of allowance to pay for it. My math wasn't so good back then--I was about in 3rd grade. The candy sale was only two weeks long. I got in trouble and learned a valuable lesson--as what I did was considered stealing--taking something when you don't have the money to pay for it. You can bet they kept my allowance for 8 weeks! I don't remember the quantities, but each color represented a different level of sales. 

The red, white and blue beads were earned for "citizenship." I still have my book and could probably look up what were some of the things I needed to do to earn them as I can't remember. Those purple beads were for something special, but I have no idea what I did to earn those. I still have my beanie and scarf. 

The blue ones were for "frontier" and I have no idea what that meant! Orange was "home" which were earned for home chores, babysitting, cleaning, cooking, etc. I don't remember many more. Brown was "outdoors"--I earned a lot of those raking leaves at the convent and washing windows for the nuns. The large beads represent every ten beads you earned. 

There were 3 levels: blue birds, then you "fly up" to a Camp Fire Girl and end belonging to the Horizon Club. I have no idea what it's like today except I think there are boys included. 

Okay, I had to stop and look it up:

Camp Fire Girls still exist, but they rebranded to simply Camp Fire in the early 2000s. Founded in 1910, the organization evolved into a co-ed, inclusive youth development program that serves boys and girls, focusing on outdoor education, camping, and after-school programming. 

This is my Horizon Club--dress. We had Indian names as did our group. My Indian name was "Zah-rah-nee-hee"--I have no idea what it stands for now. Our group was "Tambi-bi" which stood for "busy bees!" I'm sure that's all gone now as politically incorrect.

My mom took some beads from my vest to decorate this. Those yellow/black patches are swimming badges. The first one (at the bottom) is the first you earn: polliwog, frog (middle) and then fish (top). There was one more--"flying fish" but I must not have earned it! 

Okay, that's it. That's all I remember. But, I could seriously fill a scrapbook with all of the fun memories, camp outs, charity works, parties and field trips we had. Camp Fire Girls was really fun. After all, when you grow up in the country with one car, there's not much happening! Or I should say, it didn't happen if it wasn't walkable!

PS OMGosh! How could I forget? I committed my first crime at a Camp Fire meeting. I was in the second grade and "stole" a piece of candy out of a bowl sitting on the table of the house where we had our Halloween party. As an adult, I can see that they were probably there for the taking anyway. But on the way out, I took a Butterfinger. My conscience got the best of me. I had to go to confession. Once I did that, I had to make reparation. That meant that I had to pay 2 cents (the cost of those little candy bars.) I came up with a plan--I told the girl whose house I stole it from--Mary Beth Newton--that I owed her 2 cents for milk (that's what milk cost in the cafeteria) which was stupid because she and I both knew I never borrowed money for milk. Of course, that meant another trip to confession for lying! Sheesh--sometimes it was hard being a little Catholic girl!

Just goes to show, you never forget your first crime! I guess the stolen box of Russell Stovers came later. But I'm proud to say, I have never stolen another thing in my life!!