Sunday, October 4, 2009

Explorer, Homemaker, Pioneer.



At about the age of eight I became obsessed with anything and everything to do with accumulating knowledge in obscure fields, mastering uncommon skills, and learning how to do things with very specific applications. For the young intrepid that still resides somewhere inside of me, Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts, is on my list of books to find. You can download it in its entirety thanks to the Gutenberg Project* but I really want a copy of my own in hardcover.

I would've loved to have had this book as a little girl. I was an insatiably curious child and unafraid to the point of sheer folly and I know how much more trouble I would've gotten into - possibly resulting in my not surviving to adulthood - but just thinking about all the adventures it might have inspired gives me goosebumps. It's never too late.

Some excerpts:



GIRL SCOUT UNIFORM - TWO PIECE



TIMBER WOLVES ON THE TRAIL
Closely related to foxes and dogs. Range: Formerly over most of North America. Habitat Group in American Museum of Natural History.



Tourniquet: In this case it will be necessary to put on a tourniquet to take the place of the finger until a clot can form in the vessel big enough and strong enough to prevent the force of the blood current from pushing it out. This of course can be used only on the legs or arms.



HAMMERHEAD SHARK
The eyes are on the ends of blunt stalks, or extensions of the sides of the head, which suggest the name. Range: All warm seas, north to Cape Cod.



3. Bowline-Knot
If the people on the bridge at Niagara Falls had made a Bowline-knot in the end of the rope before throwing it as a life-line they might have saved one if not three lives. A Bowline is used chiefly for hoisting and lowering; it can be used for a halter or with the Sheet-bend in making a guard-line or fence. It is a knot holding fast a loop which can be made of any size and which will not jam or give.

*Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of PG, invented eBooks in 1971 when he was given an operator's account for computer time by the operators of the Xerox Sigma V mainframe at the Materials Research Lab at the University of Illinois. At the time, operators were encouraged to do whatever they wanted with the "spare time" in the hopes they would learn more for their job proficiency.

An hour and 47 minutes later, yielding the first ever posting of a document in electronic text, he expressed his belief that the greatest value created by computers would not be computing, but the storage, retrieval, and searching of what was stored in our libraries and the universal access this would afford. Learn more about Project Gutenberg here.

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