Jolly Itchy Foot

At Girl Scout summer camp, I was not yet actually a Girl Scout.

Almost everyone else was a head taller than me at least. Maybe the Girl Scout camp organizers had trouble filling their vacancies that summer, for they took in six eight-year-old Brownies. I had never been to summer camp before, and I was excited.

Date noted in grandmother’s handwriting

I lived in a Los Angeles suburb, across the city from the mountains. I rode to camp that summer with the other Brownies from my troop. We sat four-girls-across in the back seat of a station wagon. Most of the way I didn't have a window seat, but I didn’t even care.

Two girls were squashed in front with the plump mother who was driving. The woman seemed happy. She sang songs as she drove, and not as if she had to, like in church, but just because she felt like it. I thought it would be nice to have a mother, a person who could both sing and drive a car.

We rode through the crowded streets of the big city and crossed the Los Angeles River. It was a wide cement trough with a thread of blue water down the middle that you could have jumped over, easy. We were hot in the car.

When we got to the mountains, I smelled pine trees.

Camp was only 10 days, but I remember it as if it were a whole summer. We had classes in archery and flower identification and crafts. We made ashtrays out of clay that were supposed to look like water lily leaves, to take home as gifts for our families. We got to wear jeans or shorts every day, even in class, and I loved that. We also had a lesson on how to introduce two people to each other. It wasn’t too hard, and I felt I had it down.

We camped in big tents under Lodgepole Pine trees that dropped yellow resin all over everything and stuck to the bottoms of our shoes. Sometimes I scraped a wad of resin from a broken branch and chewed on the pungent gum and felt its fumes go up into my nose. Ah, that was such happiness! It made my mouth feel funny in a way that I liked. It made my fingers so sticky I could barely pull them apart and stained them black. The wonderful thing was that no one said, Cut that out.

I loved the dry southern California mountains and the chipmunk who took bits of bread from my hand and the Lodgepole Pines. But most of all I loved Jolly Itchy Foot, the camp counselor in charge of hiking. Jolly Itchy Foot had hair the color of dried pine needles, and she was tall and slender. When she smiled, the skin crinkled at the corners of her eyes. She was absolutely perfect.

The first morning at Girl Scout camp, everyone woke up when the breakfast gong rang. The second morning, I woke up too early. I tried to talk to the girl in the sleeping bag next to mine, but she pulled her bag up over her head and said, "Go away."

I got dressed and went outside into the buzzing pine trees. Jolly Itchy Foot was setting off down a trail with three of the older girls, so I ran to catch up with them. At first Jolly Itchy Foot talked and pointed out Shooting Stars and Scarlet Penstemon. But as we got deeper into the pines she spoke less and less, until she seemed like she was all alone in a private dream of forest.

We girls trailed behind or dashed ahead, laughing and horsing around. No one got lost or fell off a cliff or broke her leg, and no one stepped on a rattlesnake like we'd been warned about. But though I hollered and threw sticks with the the others, I was always aware of Jolly Itchy Foot and the silent woods she walked in.

I starting working on a plan for how to get Jolly Itchy Foot into my life. My father was going to come to camp at the end and pick me up. I would make a point of introducing him to Jolly Itchy Foot. He would of course see what an interesting woman she was, and she certainly would notice how handsome and tall my father was. They might even get married, and then Jolly Itchy Foot would be my mother, and no doubt we would move up in the mountains and walk together among the Lodgepole Pine trees every single day. She would teach me the names of all the flowers, and my father would laugh the way he used to before my mother died, and we would all like each other.

Of course, my father did have a job that he went to every day, and my grandmother and Aunt Rosemary were living with us. I didn’t know quite how everything would be arranged, but I had heard that love would find a way, and I was sure this was going to be love.

In the meantime, although I was younger than most of the other campers, I tried out for the honor of reading a message—like a short sermon—to the whole camp on Sunday morning. Of course we had to have church. You don't stop having church just because you're at camp. I remember asking one of the counselors which church would be in charge the service, and she said it was going to be interdenominational, because the campers came from many different churches. Of course, it would be Christian. Interdenominational meant Lutheran and Baptist and Presbyterian and things like that. Yes, looking back on it I can see that it was a Protestant Christian kind of service, so I found it all familiar.

I was the only Brownie who tried out for reader of the Sunday message. The other girls were much older. I didn’t expect to win, being the youngest contestant. I entered the competition just for the chance to stand up behind a lectern made from a tree burl and talk in the outdoor theater.

Jolly Itchy Foot was one of the camp counselors who were the judges, like celebrities rating Miss America pageant contestants. I took my turn reading something out loud that was mimeographed in purple ink. After all the girls finished reading, the judges whispered together for a minute. Then one of the counselors announced that they had chosen me as the camper to read the message at the church service. Of course I was amazed and thrilled.

Jolly Itchy Foot told me later when no one else could hear that she had known as soon as she heard me read that I would be chosen. Then I knew she loved me too. So I was excited about her soon-to-begin romance with my father. It was even better than being chosen to read the message at camp church.

On a hot Sunday morning I stood before the burl of a lectern and read aloud a speech written to inspire girls of every denomination. And though I don't remember the message under the Lodgepole Pines, it did include somewhere the word love, and so for me it had a secret meaning, like a promise that only I could hear. It was the finest moment of the wonderful summer.

When my father came to pick me up, I pulled him by the hand over to where Jolly Itchy Foot was talking to parents. I exercised my new skill at introductions, "Daddy, this is Jolly Itchy Foot. Jolly Itchy Foot, this is my father, Bob Cooledge.

For the first time it occurred to me that Jolly Itchy Foot must have another name. A regular name, maybe Mary or Elizabeth. Also, suddenly she seemed much younger. She looked like a girl next to my tall father. Nevertheless, only slightly shaken, I took a step back to watch the magic.

But the encounter was over fast. My father said "Thank you for looking out after Diane. She seems to have had a good time."

Jolly Itchy Foot said, "It was my pleasure," and then some mother came up and asked where some girl's bathing suit was. There was a great commotion of suitcases and lost flashlights, and then abruptly I was in the car with my father, going down the mountain, out of the trees, and back to a suburb of the city of lost angels.