Beer, Cigarrete's and Teenage Nudity

It's Girl Scout cookie time. One of the only bright spots of March in my opinion. I just grabbed a couple of Tag-a-Longs to eat with the Diet Coke I'm forced to have before I go to bed to get rid of my headache. The fact that I have to have a Diet Coke to get rid of my caffeine-deprived body, and the fact that I think I need a couple of cookies to go along with it is a whole other story.


Back to Girl Scouts. As I grabbed my cookies it brought be back to my own Girl Scout days. I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. That place is practically the opposite of Utah in every way. Not necessarily in a bad way, but it's sure different. I remember when I was about 12 our Girl Scout leader decided to take us on a field trip to Winston Salem. I don't remember exactly how far away that was but maybe two, two and a half hours. It is only now after 16 years of living in the Utah culture that I see how whack that trip really was for a bunch of Girl Scouts.

The first stop on our field trip was Stroh's Beer brewery which was apparently, "the king of beers" before Budweiser was even around. Free beer flowed from the taps for all those that visited the brewery. I learned all about the beer making business. Something that comes in handy for any 12 year old girl. The beer was help yourself as you were leaving the brewery. I remember the leaders keeping a close eye on us to make sure that we only helped ourselves to the Coke products that were also on tap. I think I'll blame my Diet Coke dependency on that day. It sure beats me being responsible for it.

Next stop was the RJ Reynolds tobacco company. Since most of you didn't take NC history in school, I'll tell you that tobacco has been the number one cash crop of NC since NC began. That is a long time since the first colony in the New World was in NC. That's actually probably a well known fact from U.S. History too.  I'm guessing that most of you have seen the Camel cigarette icon:

I'm a little proud to say that at the RJ Reynold's headquarters they have a huge statue of that very same camel made from actual tobacco and I had the honor to see it and its tobacco-y goodness. Forrest Gump and his adventures can't top seeing that. So, after learning all about how to make beer, I then learned all about how to make cigarettes, chew, snuff, etc. What better place to learn it than from the largest tobacco company in the world. Incase you were wondering, they didn't have free cigarettes there for us to take on the way out. Only too bad for me and my dreams to become addicted to nicotine.

While those are both very interesting choices of places to take a bunch of 12 year olds, the best is yet to come. We were staying at our leader's sister's house I think. We just pitched a tent in the yard and slept outside. We didn't go to sleep, however, before watching a movie. I think what they picked was the obvious choice--The Blue Lagoon. There's nothing like teenage sex and nudity to top off a day of beer and cigarettes. I hope you can appreciate how I am less redneck than I have any right to be.