Commentary: The Citrus Avenue Girls made some memories

I got my Girl Scout cookies Sunday from my friend Carla. Well, Carla isn’t a Girl Scout; she’s the good scout who called her friends on her granddaughter Polly’s behalf. Polly is the Girl Scout.

Boy, have things changed since I was a Girl Scout back in the early 1950s!

For one thing, our mothers and grandmothers didn’t sell cookies to their friends because everybody’s friend was a mother or grandmother of a Girl Scout. Scouting was very popular then. We didn’t have play dates, girls’ sports or gymnastics classes. I don’t recall any of my school friends taking any kind of class outside of school. Except piano.

To try to meet the unrealistic goal for cookie sales, set by someone in a Girl Scout office far away, we had to sell the cookies ourselves. I think the boxes were a dollar each and held four dozen cookies. One kind of cookie. Or maybe there were several kinds available, but my mother only bought Peanut Butter Sandwich cookies because of peanut butter being high in protein. Or maybe she liked them best.

My friends and I, not necessarily together, went door to door on the way home from our Scout meetings — in our green dresses with the yellow scarves — one or two of us, ringing the bell, asking whoever opened the door if they would order some cookies.

My Catholic school years were filled with door-to-door canvassing.

We sold tickets for several fundraising raffles a year, “and you don’t have to be at the drawing to win the prizes.”

We sold subscriptions to The Tidings, the Los Angeles Diocese newspaper. I was always amazed when a housewife said she would take The Tidings. Even my mother didn’t buy a Tidings subscription from me.

When we weren’t selling things, we were collecting things. Paper drives were big then. It really mattered to us if our class brought in the most papers. Door to door we went, pulling somebody’s little brother’s Red Flyer, asking if the lady of the house had any newspapers for our paper drive.

Sometimes, we collected the jokers from playing card decks. Collecting playing cards was a popular pastime for girls — like collecting baseball cards was for boys. You could buy blank-back cards at Kress’ or Woolworth’s for 10 cents a pack, but your collection was more likely to be interesting if you collected from people who bought cards to play with. Lots of grownups played bridge then, and you don’t need the jokers for bridge.

After the annual school visit from the fire captain, we even went inside people’s homes — to be certain that our neighbors along the way didn’t have fire hazards, like cords under rugs or too many plugs in one socket. If there were fire hazards, we handed out a fire danger warning, and we filled out a form for school that had the name and address of the offender. Maybe they got a visit from the fire captain too.

Didn’t our mothers worry that we were accosting total strangers, asking them to buy or give us things, entering their homes?

No, they didn’t. They assumed everyone was as trustworthy as they themselves.

Neighborhoods were considered safe. Ours was between Wilshire and Olympic boulevards, a mile or so to school and a mile in the opposite direction to the public library across from L.A. High.

We went to the movies alone and trick-or-treated alone. Jeanne, Sharon Mary Ellyn and I — the Citrus Avenue girls — window shopped along the Miracle Mile. We lingered in the dime stores looking longingly at perfume and jewelry and makeup. We walked to the La Brea Tar Pits. We walked or rode out bikes to the Farmers Market at 3rd Street and Fairfax Boulevard.

All that land was ours, us kids, to canvass, to explore, to loiter in, in our grammar school years.

It’s not so safe now. Mothers in cars line up for a mile, waiting to pick their children up after school.

Clichés become clichés because, being true, they are often repeated. So here’s one that goes back to the good old days: “Oh, the good old days.”

A Corona del Mar resident, LIZ SWIERTZ NEWMAN is the author of “A Widow’s Business.”