Column: Thoughts from Dr. Joe: Yearning for the days when he was a Girl Scout leader
It was 2002. I hadn’t seen Sgt. Ramos since 1971. It had been 31 years. Although the ink in his tats had faded, I could still read the Latin inscription, Semper Fi, on his right arm. Other than the wear and tear of some pretty rough years, he looked OK.
“Lieutenant,” he said. “What’s new with you?”
I didn’t know where to begin, so I thought I’d drop something zany into the mix of our conversation.
“Sgt. Ramos, you’re looking at a new leader of a Girl Scout troop in La Cañada. They’re Daisies, kindergartners,” I said. He looked at me as though he was gut shot. I could see the confusion in his eyes, transitions, the alchemy of going from one form of life to another. Sgt. Ramos had spent 35 years in the Corps, and I bet he wondered if he would experience a similar fate.
“Lieutenant, how’s that going for you?” Of course, he was being facetious. But he had no idea that I was about to begin a magic carpet ride. He recalled the rough days when I was his lieutenant and when he was my right arm, and then I wondered what I was getting into with this Girl Scout adventure.
“Lieutenant, do you think you can handle this?” he asked.
I told him I wasn’t sure.
That year, our oldest daughter, Sabine, was a kindergartner at La Cañada Elementary. My wife Kaitzer asked if I would attend on her behalf a meeting at LCE about Girl Scouts. I was to take copious notes and report back to her on Scouting in La Cañada. Although I didn’t want to miss the special broadcast of a Yankees game, I begrudgingly agreed. I have a big heart. Later that evening Kaitzer returned from teaching and asked what I had learned at the meeting. Since I have the attention span of a 3-month-old, I said, “Not much.” I then told her that Marta Cea and I were the leaders of the new Daisy troop at LCE.
Last Sunday, 15 years later, Girl Scout Troop 889 had their last hoorah. The reunion was an opportunity for the girls to come together and share their adventure into and beyond the rite of passage. The girls attend different colleges scattered throughout the country and hadn’t seen each other for three years. Yet the span of time was insignificant. They immediately bonded and were lost in conversations. The commonality of Girl Scouts and their shared adventures rekindled the essence of Scouting: sisterhood.
There was a method to the madness of Troop 889. A philosophy that existed beyond the ability to intellectualize its rationale. Twenty kids came together with an old beat-up Marine and somehow it worked.
Throughout the afternoon I hung with the parents. Our troop’s philosophy was that it took a village; thus, Troop 889 was inclusive of moms and dads and brothers and sisters. I felt very nostalgic and somewhat forlorn during the gathering, yet the kids were overwhelmed with the camaraderie and joy of being together once again.
I’m drawn toward etymology, the study of the origin of words. Regardless of our understanding of a word, there is typically another meaning which speaks to its rhetorical essence. That evening I studied the etymology of the word nostalgic. It is derived from two Greek words, nostos (to return) and algos (to suffer). It became clear that nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.
JOE PUGLIA is a practicing counselor, a retired professor of education and a former officer in the Marines. Reach him at doctorjoe@ymail.com. Visit his website at doctorjoe.us.
