November 30, 2016 - “Life ain’t fair!” I cried.

          I was in Girl Scouts for only a short time for a reason.  The bittersweet tale follows.

I wanted to earn the wildflower badge. I suggested the idea and my Mom suggested that I and my best friend work on it together.

          So, I and my best friend did this project together.  As a team we scoured nearby forest, field, and meadows to obtain two of every wild flower specimen that we needed for the Girl Scout badge.  Under my Mom’s supervision, we pressed leaves and flowers between wax paper pages and created two identical books. 

         

Now, my best friend wasn’t the forest, field, and meadows type to begin with.  I was the rough and tumble tom boy.  [Heck, I used to climbed trees and got pine pitch [pine tar] gobs in my hair which my mother had to cut out with scissors.]

Additionally, I could easily identify most of the wildflowers, unlike my best friend.  And, then take into consideration that it was my Mom’s botanical reference books we used to confirm identification for the various flowers.

However, the Troop leader found mine faulty in some way.

If you were to set the books side by side, and flip the pages one by one at the same time – anyone could see that they were identical.

As a child I couldn’t convey that to the people in charge. I was alone – no parent in attendance. My book and HER book were exactly the same as we had done this together.  But, NO – I didn’t get a badge – she got a badge.

I was still in tears when my parents picked me up from the Girl Scout meeting at the Town Hall.

My Mom made supper as I tried to explain what had happened.

My Mom knew how hard I had worked on it. However, Mom being the diplomatic type, decided not to pursue the “injustice or inequality” of it.

I remember turning to Dad next and with my hands on my hips I tried to explain it to my Dad and all I could do was blurt out, “Life ain’t fair.”

I was looking for guidance. To this day I can remember his answer,

“Now that you know that, Daughter, LIFE will be much easier for you.”