Promptly at 11:15 a.m. Saturday Joan Palmer Carlson stopped for me. She had come to take me out for lunch. It all started 59 or 60 years ago. At the time I reluctantly became the leader of a Brownie Troop.

As I recall it consisted of about 16 girls. Three of them have passed from this plane of existence. One of them now lives in South Carolina, too far away to come back for a reunion.

I thought about the girls often. Some of you may remember reading about some of their adventures in this column. I hope you will forgive me if I repeat them.

Because Joan, who now lives in Minneapolis, but visits Albert Lea fairly often, and Barbara Lee Norby, who lives in Albert Lea, both among the original members of the Brownie Troop, got to talking about their Scouting days and as result thought it would be fun to have a reunion.

I can’t tell you how thrilled and happy I was when they communicated their intention of taking me out to lunch. To my surprise I fell madly in love with my Brownies long ago. They were bright, beautiful, full of ideas, and a source of unfailing interest.

Others of the troop attending the reunion were: Barb Vandegrift Schow, Joan Heilman Christensen, Janice Loken Tukua, Angie Warrington Nelson, Julianne

Nash Suthers, Karen Hillstrom Brill, Sally Quiggle McKinley and Bonnie Stephenson Johnson.

There were also messages from Gayle Glenn Nelson, who is recovering from an attack of the flu and felt that the three and a half hour drive from her home in Wisconsin was a bit too much.

And from Pat Baker Heining, who with her three sons, three daughters-in-law and three grandchildren was making an Alaskan cruise, their “first ever family vacation.”

As we had our lunch and gathered up the years I was remembering not only the 10 girls present, but, also, the equally beloved absent ones.

In her note, Gayle Glenn asked if I remembered that her mother Clarice, walked all the way to my house to teach the troop sewing techniques, so they could earn their sewing badges.

Indeed I did remember it, for more reasons than one. The smallest member of our troop was in no mood to sew. She sat on the floor with her untouched sewing moaning softly to herself and clutching first one side and then the other.

I wasn’t worried at first, but it went on long enough that I began to believe I should telephone her mother. At that point Julianne sat up straight, gave me a long cold look and snarled, “Well, don’t just stand there. Do something.”

We thought about our day camp experiences, too. The one-pot meals we cooked. One day when we were sitting on our sit-upons, learning a new song, a small snake slithered by throwing the girls into a panic.

I calmed them by talking to them about my little snake, Cecil, and how much I missed him when my mother insisted that I take him back to the creek where I’d found him. A word of advice here. If you have an incident like Cecil in your history don’t share it with sympathetic young listeners.

While we were getting ready for lunch, the three girls assigned to fetch wood for the fire, returned without the wood but with a live snake that looked to my startled gaze about the size of a boa constrictor.

They were a little nervous. It took all three of them to hold it. One at each end and one in the middle. All three of them clutching the beastie tightly with both hands.

At this late date I can be honest. My first impulse was to run screaming into the woods. But they were so proud to be bringing me this gift, “To sort of take the place of Cecil,” they told me happily.

The snake kept putting his tongue out at me and I supressed a desire to stick my tongue out at him. I even managed to make a magnificent speech of gratitude for this beautiful gift. And the gratitude was sincere. I knew how much courage it must have taken to procure the snake.

“The trouble is,” I explained. “Cecil was a baby snake. This snake is grown up. To tell you the truth I’m afraid it’s somebody’s mother. I’d love to take it home with me, but I’d always worry a little about the little snakes waiting and waiting for their mother to come home. Well, you know how you’d feel if someone took your mothers away.”

Terrible. They’d felt terrible. So, still holding the snake, and after some discussion, they carried it back to where they found it. I still feel a little guilty about the whole affair because I had the distinct impression that they felt I was nobly unselfish to give up the gift out of sympathy for the lonely little baby snakes.

(Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column runs Thursday.)