Both Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts use "Be Prepared" as their motto. By fourth grade, many Girl Scouts in southern California were prepared to go to summer camp. Campers hugged and kissed their parents in a synagogue parking lot and boarded the bus, duffle bags and sleeping bags filled with items from the "must have" list — plus bits of hidden contraband.

Before we left, we had woven lanyards for whistles to summon help in the woods. A small box contained items for a first aid kit and a triangular bandage, which we had learned how to fold and tie to treat all sorts of injuries. My pocketknife was an official Girl Scout model, in green with a gold trefoil design, and a few added features. (No Swiss Army knives for us.)

Other pre-made camp craft included a "sit upon" for a bit of comfort and cleanliness on hard building floors or outside, when we needed to meet without chairs. All of our knot tying practice was put to use lashing branches together to create small shelters and pieces of furniture.

New skills we learned included starting fires with wet tinder, traversing the terrain with a map and compass, and watching for signs of wild animals. Our mess kits (mesh bags with our eating utensils) were tied up in the trees to help them dry after washing the dishes, and food was secured to keep the bears away.

Anyone who calls animals "dumb" hasn't dealt with hungry bears or ground squirrels. I saw a brown bear open a jar of mayonnaise that hadn't been put away after lunch, and she licked out every bit with her long tongue. We did less well with the treats hidden in our personal gear, which the ground squirrels always found by chewing into our duffles or sleeping bags.

One time, I tried to foil the critters by putting my candy in a metal tin. I found the container open and empty on the floor of the tent, with tiny paw prints and marks in the dirt which showed how they had rolled the tin around, banging it into the tent pole over and over, until it popped open.

Some of our mornings began with breakfast in a dining hall with the whole camp community. Meal tasks would be assigned to various groups with a kaper chart, and songs were led and learned before going out to activities. However, much of what we did was in smaller units with woodsy nicknames like Chinquapin (a native oak tree).

We organized fun activities, such as nightly campfires. Leaves were pulled off green branches, which don't burn well, to skewer foods which we cooked over the fire. Biscuit dough wrapped around hot dogs — known as "pigs in a blanket — was a dinner favorite.

S'mores were considered the best dessert ever. We roasted marshmallows over the flames to a puffy golden brown before smushing them between two graham crackers with a square of chocolate from a Hershey bar — ooey, gooey, sticky-finger goodness. The evening would end with singing Scout and folk songs.

Growing up not too far from Hollywood, camping in the Angeles Forest sometimes allowed contradictions to life in the wild. A bunch of us participated in water sports at a better equipped Boy Scout camp as extras for a couple of family oriented films.

If we attended church in Lake Arrowhead, western movie star Roy Rogers might be sitting in a back pew. Afterwards, the walk across hundreds of yards of dry, cracked lakebed littered with the bodies of stranded fish taught us consequences of drought.

Less enjoyable activities included restoring the scummy local pond by mucking out any trash and many buckets full of overgrown algae and water plants. That pond and the adjacent skunk cabbage swamp proved quite useful when lightning from a thunderstorm sparked a forest fire nearby.

The counselors herded us out of our beds onto the damp low-lying center of the campground. Flames licked the tops of the trees which surrounded the camp, lighting the sky with a golden glimmer.

What do Girl Scouts do while sitting in a swamp while waiting out a forest fire, with no paraphernalia and only the clothes on their backs (pajamas and jackets)? We are always prepared! We sing songs!

~ Marcia Ehinger