What I've Learned

I met this week with a troop of Girl Scouts who are working on their media badge. One of the requirements is that they interview someone who works in media. The troop leader is a friend of mine, and asked if I'd talk to the troop and answer their questions.

I enjoyed being interviewed by these young women. They were energetic, yet respectful, asked intelligent questions, and seemed genuinely interested in my answers.

We discussed the difference between primary and secondary sources, why first drafts usually are – and should be – terrible, and what sorts of assignments I'd been given when I'd worked as a reporter. Why had I become a reporter? Was I ever sent out of state on assignment? Was I ever asked to write a news story that I didn't want to write?

Good questions.

When told about this weekly column, one young woman asked, "Have you ever written any columns about animals?"

The answer, of course, is yes. As an example, I told them about the column I wrote back in 2005 concerning Clarence, a bulldog.

Clarence belonged to the girlfriend of a buddy of mine. One evening, he and I were at the girl's house, watching television with her and her parents.

Clarence, an albino, was blind in one eye and had wrinkly skin that hung down, obscuring the vision of the other. He would use this as an excuse to walk on the cat – "Oh, sorry. Didn't see you." – who would wake up and slap Clarence in the face.

Clarence would then chase the cat. The house had a circuit that went from living room to dining room, down a hall, into a bedroom, then back into the living room.

The evening we were there, Clarence did his "oh sorry, didn't mean to step on you" routine, the cat slapped him, and they were off.

Because the bedroom was messy, the girls' mother had closed the door that led back into the living room. The cat ran down the hall, entered the bedroom, saw that the door was closed, and jumped up on the bed. Clarence, who had worked up a full head of steam coming down the hallway, barreled into the bedroom, didn't notice that the door was closed, and slammed into it going about 35 miles per hour.

The impact knocked the bottom panel out of the door, spilling both the panel and Clarence into the living room. Clarence, who wasn't hurt, immediately began looking this way and that, trying to figure out where the cat had gone.

My buddy and I laughed so hard and so long that his girlfriend, who was very protective of Clarence and hated it when we made fun of him, finally threw us out.

The Girl Scouts liked this story. (The original column, by the way, was much funnier than this brief retelling.)

One Scout said that her dog was old and would, when excited, run around for about five minutes, then have to take a nap. (I told her I knew the feeling.) Another said that her dog could walk backwards. Another said she was trying to convince her mother to buy her a duckling.

We discussed handwriting versus keyboarding.

Most of the girls admitted to having terrible handwriting, because they use it so rarely. One girl said she has a teacher who requires handwritten first drafts of papers.

"Cursive is so useless," the girl said. "I only use it for that one thing."

Reading was a more hopeful topic. Each girl named a book she was currently reading. These ranged from Mockingjay, the third book in the Hunger Games trilogy, to a book about a girl detective, to Savvy, by Ingrid Law, a book about the magical Beaumont family.

I left the interview uplifted and energized, optimistic about this young generation, and not at all in need of a nap. Well, maybe a short one.