Bobby-Sox Convention

American girls start smoking when they are too young and use too much makeup. They also dress "kinda sloppy." These are the opinions of 13-year-old Barbara May, convening with 250 other teen-age girls from Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Kansas last week in Denver.

The conventioneers were Senior Girl Scouts. They listened earnestly to talks which covered world peace, juvenile delinquency, table manners and sex. They decided that the country's 1,000,000 Girl Scouts could raise $250,000 for foreign relief next year by giving up "a couple of candy bars." Barbara, one of the youngest and therefore least noticed, screwed up her courage enough to say at a race-prejudice discussion: "We shouldn't be mean to people; we should treat them just as we want to be treated."

In the Shirley-Savoy Hotel ballroom, Barbara & friends watched with a professional air as sister delegates demonstrated good manners. Everyone enjoyed most the skits showing horrible examples (see cut). The skit which got the loudest applause: "Monopolizing the Telephone while the Rest of the Family Wait."

Adult leaders used "guide sheets" (which they kept out of sight) to steer discussion groups ("huddles") through such intricate and disturbing topics as Hand Holding, Kissing, Necking, Petting, Love Play, Mating. One delegate explained: "It's like a gab session only more refined, of course."

Sample question which the girls asked each other in a refined way: "What do you think of a couple going steady not for heavy necking but because they like each other and really have fun?" The consensus, after deliberation: it is better for a girl to have "loads of boy friends" and go with them in groups.

Said Barbara May: "I haven't had a date yet so I don't know about those things. Anyway I don't think a girl should date before she's 14 and a freshman."

Just like all other conventioneers, the delegates also had their fun. They flocked to Denver's movies, listened to the Denver Symphony Orchestra. Then they went home to report to their troops. Denver had never seen a more decorous convention, seldom one more serious.

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