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"A very happy birthday to the Girl Scouts, which turns 100 years old today. Since the organization was founded in 1912 by Juliette Gordon Low&amp;amp;#8212;whose goal was &amp;amp;#8220;to train girls to take their rightful places in life, first as good women, then as good citizens, wives and mothers&amp;amp;#8221;&amp;amp;#8212;50 million American girls and women have been Girl Scouts, including me. Here I am at one of our Scouts meetings in the school library. I&amp;#x27;m the Brownie on the left. Troop 2098 4eva!I &amp;quot;lived by the Girl Scout law,&amp;quot; as the promise went, first as a Brownie, then as a Junior and briefly as a Cadet. We would do crafts during our weekly meetings, including making famed Sit-Upons, which were basically newspapers covered with cloth or wallpaper, and have sing songs. We weren&amp;amp;#8217;t stuck inside all the time either&amp;amp;#8212;our leaders would take us on day trips or we&amp;amp;#8217;d have volunteer activities. For some reason we&amp;amp;#8217;d march in the local parades on Memorial Day and Labor Day. And of course we&amp;amp;#8217;d sell cookies&amp;amp;#8212;I kicked butt in that department and had some special top seller badges on my Girl Scout sash which my mom let me stitch BY MYSELF and was a total disaster. Clearly I fancied myself as a trend-setting Scout. White patent leather t-straps, with heels, paired with brown knee-high socks. Stylin&amp;#x27;Where I grew up, just north of New York City, there were tons of Girl Scout Camps. Amazingly, they&amp;amp;#8217;re all still there instead of being turned into condos or McMansions. Every year we went on at least two camping trips&amp;amp;#8212;one indoor in the winter, one outdoor in the spring. My mom would often come along, whether she was a leader or just to help, and she reminds me of the time I led a late-night mission to sneak out of our tent. We didn&amp;amp;#8217;t get far because apparently I was so loud rallying the girls that I woke my mother in the next tent and, as I opened the flap of our tent to go outside, I heard voice: Suzanne Michelle Byrne don&amp;amp;#8217;t even think about it. Busted! Later that night, a raccoon tried to get into our tent, which was probably my payback for trying to stage a breakout. This must have been an important event in the world of Scouting, hence the candles, but I don&amp;#x27;t remember what exactly was going on.Each summer I&amp;amp;#8217;d spend a week at Girl Scout camp, where I did everything from milk a goat (!) to roast marshmallows under the starry sky while singing camp songs. It was something I looked forward to every year and it was pretty perfect&amp;amp;#133;except for the latrine situation. That part was very traumatic. Waving to my parents as I marched by in the parade. Too bad there wasn&amp;#x27;t a Girl Scout stylist! Yikes. And the shoes were definitely not as cool.I retired from Girl Scouts in about the 7th grade when I took up field hockey, in addition to basketball and soccer, and I was too busy, but I&amp;amp;#8217;ve continued to show my love for Girl Scouting by buying cookies&amp;amp;#133; lots and lots of cookies. So many in fact that I had to ban buying my favorite kind, Samoas, because I&amp;amp;#8217;d eat them too quickly. I now stick to Thin Mints and Tagalongs, which I find tasty but not eat-the-entire-box-in-one-sitting addicting. As I noted, there have been 50 million ladies in the scouting program here in the United States, including many famous ones. Katie Couric, Wynonna Judd, Taylor Swift, Abigail Breslin and Dakota Fanning are just some of the famous alumnae. I loved this quote Dakota gave to People about being a Scout, saying: &amp;amp;#8220;When I was little I went door-to-door selling Girl Scout cookies with my sister, which was so fun.&amp;quot; It made me laugh because she was already famous when she became a Girl Scout at the age of 11, so it must have been funny having her show up--with younger sister, Elle Fanning--at someone&amp;#x27;s doorstep selling cookies. I probably would have ordered two of everything. Were you a Girl Scout? What do you remember about about it? More... * Warning: You WILL Want a Snack After Reading This Post About the Oreo Cookie Turning 100 * Ten Reasons I Miss the &amp;#x27;80s--Starring Debbie Gibson (AKA the Woman Behind My Signature Scent Back Then!) * Who Is Your Celebrity Look-alike? (I&amp;#x27;ll Tell You Mine If You Tell Me Yours.) Photo: Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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