Brownies catch hula wave in winter

Arms waving from side to side in the school cafeteria, Bailey's first grade Brownie troop danced the hula.

They wore homemade hula skirts made out of grocery sacks from Wal-Mart, hung colorful plastic leis around their necks and planted plastic flowers in their hair.

This wasn't something you would find in the travel brochures.

Our oldest daughter, Becca, helped out, serving as hula girl as the younger girls watched a video from the Public Library explaining the basic dance steps.

My wife, Joni, is the fearless leader of this Scout troop. She did her best to encourage the girls to dance up a storm or at least wave their arms without crashing into anyone.

"Spread out, spread out," she advised the 20 girls who huddled together in front of the TV monitor, barely leaving any room for hula girl Becca to show off the dance steps.

But the girls didn't get into the Hawaiian spirit until they started shaking their plastic rattles designed to resemble traditional gourd rattles. At that point, there was a whole lot of shakin' going on and Elvis wasn't in the house.

I snapped a few digital photos of the momentous event. When your wife is dancing the hula, it's important to capture the moment.

The twine-tied paper skirts kept falling off some of the kids who found they would rather dance in their jeans without donning their costume creations.

Bailey quickly tired of wearing her bag skirt, which I helped make and on which she had drawn a large flower. She asked to be relieved of her costume and I obliged. It was already showing a little wear. One of the strips was torn away, which clearly devalued the costume in Bailey's eyes.

But there's more to Scouting than just the hula. There's also the ring-toss on the plastic flamingo and the tossing of small square bean bags into wooden fish holes. On this night, the girls even got to do the limbo and have some fruit punch in easy serving drink boxes.

We didn't bring sand. When you're travel group is a bunch of first graders, it's best to leave the sand outside.

The great thing about this "trip" was it didn't cost a fortune. There was no need for airport security or an in-flight movie.

This may have been a poor man's Hawaii, but in the midst of our snowy winter, even paper-bag hula skirts are a treat.

Bailey and her buddies learned that you can do more with a paper bag than carry groceries.

Of course, it's getting harder and harder to find paper bags in the grocery store. One of these years, Girl Scouts will be forced to make hula skirts out of those plastic bags.

Personally, I don't think that would be nearly as fashionable, although it might land you a part on one of those TV reality shows.

But there's no reality quite like an excited troop of Brownies, giddy with the enthusiasm of youth and a school gym in which to play.

Even without an ocean, you can catch a wave -- the hand and arm kind that has hula Brownies dancing with delight.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer with the Southeast Missourian.