Dear Bunch, Because you continue to encourage me to tell stories about my memories, here's one I wrote a few years ago about Zoar Valley Girl Scout Camp in 1942 or 43. I hope you'll enjoy it. vee from Youngstown "THE ASH GROVE" December 27, 1997 As I was preparing dinner early this evening, I heard an almost forgotten song on the radio. It was "The Ash Grove." When I heard the first strains of it-"Down yonder green valley where streamlets meander"--it took me back 55 years to when I was an 11-year-old Girl Scout at Zoar Valley Girl Scout Camp in Cattaraugus County, NY. It was lovely to hear it being sung again; however, hearing how it was being sung grated on my nerves. You see, it was sung by a British choir and they sang it so prim and proper and professional--no true feeling about the lovely quiet words. But, even that part reminded me of Girl Scout Camp. You see, one of our camp counselors was a Miss Upham and trust me, she was the epitome of "prim and proper!" All the girls dreaded it when she was the counselor who sat at your table during a meal. With perfect diction she would sternly instruct the "young ladies" in proper table manners. No, no, no, you do not pick up a whole slice of bread in your hand and just smear butter on it! You break it in half and then while it's still on your bread and butter plate, you daintily butter it. It seemed that no matter how hard you tried, you could never quite suit Miss Upham. But, oh, Girl Scout Camp! The songs we learned to sing--everything from "Inky Pinky Spider" to "Children's Prayer" from Humperdink's opera, "Hansel and Gretel." French-Canadian songs such as "Alouette" and "Donkey Riding," Czech songs such as "Walking at Night," Negro spirituals, English songs, the Australian round, "Kookaburra," and maybe my very favorite--the funny Appalachian song, "Deaf Woman's Courtship ("Speak a little louder sir, I'm very hard of hearing"). The evening camp fires, the long walks to the latrine, the reading comic books under the woolen blankets with your flash light after "lights out" and the chill of the nights sleeping in canvas tents. Nature walks, craft classes, and all the other activities that were a solid learning experience that you never quite forgot after all these years. Just a few years ago on New Year's Eve, I was invited to celebrate it with an old classmate of mine from junior and senior high school. There was just me and Elaine, her 92-year-old mother and a longtime widow friend of her mother's, Dorothy Harrington, I believe her name was. At midnight we toasted the new year with champagne and then sat down to their traditional New Year's Eve oyster stew. Somehow the conversation turned to the subject of Girl Scouts and Dorothy indicated that she had been very active in Scouting. Well, that certainly perked up my ears! I mentioned how precious my experiences were to me at Zoar Valley Girl Scout Camp back in the early 1940s. "Oh, really," Dorothy said. "I was a camp counselor there around that time!" All of a sudden, I had a dreaded suspicion and it was all that I could do to ask her what her maiden name was. "Upham!" The blood must have drained from my face as I asked in total disbelief, "You're MISS UPHAM??" Oh, my God! There I was sitting at the same table with Miss Upham, not paying all that much attention to my table manners!! She was quite pleased that I remembered her but quite surprised when I reminded her how strict she had been. She denied ever being strict but later, Elaine confirmed to me that it MUST have been the same Miss Upham because she hadn't changed all that much over the years! So there you are girls. Remember with fondness all of the pleasures of your young girlhood, but at the same time, remember your table manners. You never know at whose table Miss Upham will sit at next!!