RESTING WATERS: With the impending closure of Camp Resting Waters — the Girl Scout camp in Kane — we wanted to hear if any of our readers have memories to share.
One of our reporters remembers going there several times as a young Scout.
She tells us, “It’s strange what details I do remember. In the late 1980s/early 1990s, the walls of the Rainbow Lodge were this red-orange color that I always imagined had been there for a long time. Once I transitioned from being a Brownie to a Junior, it was a treat to be able to stay in the Sunshine Chalet Lodge.
“I remember making pineapple upside down cakes in tuna fish cans, losing a baby tooth during craft time and going snowshoeing for the first time. We’d always stay up after the leaders went to bed, playing cards and talking.”
What do our readers remember?
The camp will be remain open through Friday, then it will be sold. According to the website for Girl Scouts Western Pennsylvania, a closing ceremony will be held April 29 for current and former Girl Scouts and volunteers.
CHERRY TREES: Washington, D.C., is known for its cherry blossoms that bloom every spring.
Today is the 105th anniversary of the day the city was gifted the trees from a Japanese politician.
According to the website for the National Cherry Blossom Festival, the festival “commemorates the 1912 gift of 3,000 cherry trees from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo to the city of Washington, D.C.”
While a ceremony was held this day in 1912, the first festival was held in 1927 and has grown in size since, becoming an event spanning several weekends and bringing about 1.5 millions visitors to Washington, according to the event’s organizers.
“In a simple ceremony on March 27, 1912, First Lady Helen Herron Taft and Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted the first two trees from Japan on the north bank of the Tidal Basin in West Potomac Park.
In 1981, the United States gave cuttings from the trees back to replace trees in Japan that were destroyed by flooding, according to the group.
This year’s festival will last through April 16.
