Eat More Beans

Part of the news cycle lately is the price of gas, and part of that story looks back to the gas troubles of the 1970s; a story, as it happens, I am a part of. Granted, you probably never heard about my role in the energy crisis of the 1970s, and I think we should fix that.

I was in elementary school at the time, so right in the prime of when one normally makes history. I was also a Girl Scout—a Brownie, as my age group was called—and it was from this position that I made my mark (albeit small) on the energy crisis here in the U.S.

The Girl Scouts taught me many things, among them civic duty. When a community has needs, the Girl Scouts like to pull up their sleeves and get into the mix of working towards a better world. In the case of the economic woes of the time, our little rural troop of eight- and nine-year-olds decided that a focused poster-making project would be just the thing to help elevate morale in the community.

The idea was that we’d draw up signs that offered tips on how to conserve energy as messages of support. This played to our strengths, as this was long before anyone knew about such things as laptops or cell phones. Instead, kids knew crayons. A poster project was right in our wheelhouse.

On poster-making day we gathered around our scout leaders to hear our instructions. First, we received a short primer on what was going on outside in the big, wide world. It sounded terrible. Folks were having to conserve, make do with less, pay more for less, and shift lifestyles. I stood and listened, worried to pieces about the candy and toy markets.

Then the poster materials were dispersed to a collection of tabletops, and we tucked our small scout-uniformed bodies into our chairs and began. So many ideas floated around in our heads. Lots of great suggestions began to flow forth. There was happy chatter around the room mingling with the soft scratch-scratch of our crayons. I felt important. We were being asked to help.

As I ruminated on what bit of positivity I’d offer our community, I wrangled with a selection of choice ideas. My prescient understanding that sometimes humor can help ease pain emerged in my eight-year-old thinking. Suddenly I had it. It was something I’d overheard in the greater conversation out there—so not an original—but an idea worth repeating. I set to work with a sense of purpose and a sense of levity, too.

I took the crayons and outlined a nice blue car. I put a cloud of bubbles wafting from the tailpipe. I painstakingly lettered across the top in careful handwriting. It was solid advice for the community. It looked fabulous is what I can remember.

I took it to my mother, one of the scout leaders, for a green light of approval, and hopefully a merit badge, too. She looked at my creation, and then down at me. She narrowed her eyes, got that serious look, and all she said was, “Are you kidding me?”

Now, I’m not an expert on the energy industry nor an economist, but it’s probably fair to say that just eating more beans wouldn’t have had meaningful positive effect on the economy at the time. But I also think, in fairness, one must agree that the creative concept of flatulence jokes as a morale booster is not bad for an eight-year-old.

And that’s how the story went, and I like this story. It’s a small gem among my memories of childhood. It makes me chuckle every time I have an occasion to recall it, which is what I did when I recalled it to my mother and sister recently. I laughed and chuckled, and then sighed.

“That was so funny, wasn’t it? Eat more beans?” My eyes crinkled with amusement.

They looked at me without cracking a smile.

“You didn’t make that poster,” my sister blurted out. “Some other girl did.”

“What?”

What the heck was she talking about?

Then my mom joined in.

“Yes, she’s right. An older girl in the troop made that poster. Not you, Stephanie.”

My mind stopped dead in its tracks. This was blasphemy. It was cruel disrespect to my memory, to my very heart. But was it true, what they were saying? If so, my heart would break. I’d never get a chance to re-do making a silly poster as an eight-year-old, get reprimanded for it, and then live my adult life enjoying the fondness for the hilarity of that moment.

But how could I argue with two people’s memory? If it were only my sister saying this, I’d brush it off as skewed recollection. If it were only my mom, I’d desperately throw the age card in there. With one person’s memory pitted against yours, it’s easy to feel safe holding onto your preferred version of history. When two concurring versions stand up against yours, your luck is slipping.

I was suddenly forced to ask myself: Did I not make the poster?!

I asked this question and received two sides of an answer which were like conjoined twins that shared a body. The body was the history of this memory in me, which spanned nearly fifty years. It had been a part of me for a very long time. The two heads were the odds for and against my precious version of the truth. The truth for me in that moment, staring in disbelief at my sister and mother, was that I could be swayed either way. Of the two truths, one was starting to make more sense to me, while the other was clearly making me happier.

And this leads me to the crux of the matter. Does it matter?

What is a memory? That’s a question with scads of knowledge behind it, none of which will appear here since I know nearly nothing about it. But like you, I know our memory holds our lives for us like a treasure box. It's the treasure itself.

Memory is an encompassing term for different neural events, all of which enable our development and functioning. The way we remember, the things we remember or don’t remember, the fact that we remember—it’s nothing short of extraordinary.

Memories of the past are important to us partly because that’s how they came to be and how they hung on—they were worth remembering somehow. We re-prune our memories constantly to fit the story that we like best or need most. And we’ll like a story for all kinds of reasons.

It’s a shame though that we often have no way of verifying our history. And doesn’t this cause some heated discussions sometimes! There come times when reinterpreting our own history would serve us best, and other times when letting go is helpful. Sometimes simply shrugging and carrying on is what gets us to the next stage. In the case of making a poster about eating beans during an energy crisis, I decided I would reinterpret.

If somewhere along the line my memory co-opted that girl’s poster to be my own, then there must be a reason for this. I can’t possibly know what that is at this late date, but I can see what is most important about that story: it brought me joy. That poster surely made me laugh when I saw it. Perhaps it amazed me, too.

I was almost professionally shy during my childhood. It would make sense that I wouldn't have had the guts to make that poster. But I also loved funny stuff. I don’t doubt that when that poster was revealed to the Brownie group, a private part of me thought it was the best thing ever that I’d never do myself. Instead, I was a thief. Over time, I slowly stole that poster for my own.

I wonder where that girl is now. Wouldn't it be something to run into her after all these years? I can tell you one thing--I'd ask her to be my friend. If she has no recollection of the beans, it sure continues to make at least one person smile. And this is helpful at a time when the news is a tough place to be.

But why leave the beans in the past? The dreamer in me thinks about a worldwide movement where people start eating lots of beans to try to alleviate some of the world’s problems. Big bean marches would sprout up globally with bean vendors set up along the routes. There would be bean flags and bean eating pronouncements and lots of ‘EAT MORE BEANS’ signs.

Of course, that’s ridiculous. But then, who knows? You never know which way the wind will blow.