RSS 2.0 FeedMarch 10, 2011, Weekly editorial
The Girl Scouts in our lives
This week, your community newspaper and its sponsors recognize the importance of the Girl Scouts in our lives. For many girls, Daisy Scouts is their first after-school activity besides sports and religious instruction. Usually, two mothers volunteer to take care of these kindergartners in the elementary school gym or auditorium after school.
They lead the children in saying the Pledge of Allegiance and the Girl Scout pledge. Together, they do crafts and sing songs. They march in the town parades. In later years, there will be camping trips, community service projects and merit badges that show all types of skills have been learned.
The former publisher of this newspaper, the late Faith Laursen, was a Girl Scout who loved the woods of her native North Carolina and helped push for “forever wild” status for the preserve on the Bellmore-Merrick border that was eventually named for her.
The Girl Scouts have a song that goes, “Make new friends but keep the old; one is silver and the other gold.” It is a good motto for our community as well. While we may try stores at malls and in other communities, it is the local merchant who knows us, keeps our needs in mind and also helps fund local teams and causes, and shoulders part of our tax burden. As one local banker said recently, we need to support our local merchants and keep those “for rent” signs from cropping up all over. They are worth their weight in gold!
The Girl Scouts and St. Patty’s Day
Not so long ago, we were marching with the Girl Scouts in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Rockville Centre, a densely Irish town where a green line is painted down the middle of the parade route street all year. It was just after war had been declared, and most of the people lining the sides of the street looked quite serious. But our little white dogs, dressed in green skirts, looked so silly that they soon brought smiles. It was so nice to see frowns change to smiles as we walked by.
The Irish have known a lot of sorrow in their history, but they also know how to bring joy with something as simple as a little jig. Perhaps that is why everyone wants to be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.
