Thursday, February 3, 2011

Thanks for the memories...

Here's the thing -- as far as I can tell, my brother Jeff sprang into being fully formed (or malformed as the case may be) at the age of about twenty. I remember a significant portion of his childhood, because, you know, I was in the area for all but the first three years. He, on the other hand, while technically present during the entirety of his childhood, doesn't remember more than about five minutes of it.

I can describe most of the layout of the house we moved away from when I was three or four years old. (My mother has corroborated what I remember, so it's not like I'm making the whole thing up.) My brother... not so much.

I also remember being in a Girl Scout troop when we lived in Missouri, except that in that location at that time there was a step in between Brownies and Girl Scouts called June Bugs. The uniform looked pretty similar to the Girl Scout uniform. I don't remember selling cookies, but we did sell a book of recipes. We learned to country dance in someone's basement. (Missouri, in winter, you're going to be in the basement. Better than "camping" at the mall like my sister's Girl Scout troop in southern California did.) I know that this thing happened because even if my memories were falsified, my mom kept my sash with all of the useless badges on it.

Yet... there's no evidence of this whole June Bugs thing anywhere, and everything is on the internet.

So, in a world where my normal phrase is "pictures or it didn't happen", did I even have this childhood I remember? I'm leaning toward the abducted by aliens theory myself...

2 comments:

JJ said...

Maybe the June Bugs thing is new? I was in Girl Scouts and don't remember the June Bug thing. It was Brownies, Juniors, Cadets, Seniors. Then they started Daisies who were pre-Brownies. I was also an assistant Brownie leader when I was in college, and there were no Junebugs then, either.

Theresa B (of Nebulopathy) said...

I think it must have been a regional thing. Possibly it wasn't even an official Girl Scout group -- I don't know. I just find it odd that I can find no trace of it ever having existed.