What is your position on eating snow? I was a snow-eater has a child. It was strongly discouraged in that time. I would sometimes be called in from the outside if my mom happened to catch me in the act. Other times, I remember coming in from the outside to be met with an examination of my mittens for signs of show consumption (?). So, it was with mixed feelings that I watched my 8 year old grandson early this morning, chowing on a handful of snow. I felt the need, as a grandmother, to stop him from eating contaminated snow. I think the thought was planted by my early life experiences. But as I waited for his bus to arrive, I was struck by the kind of purity of the moment. It was the first accumulating snow of the year: the snow was fresh. It was quiet and I was watching as the pink cheeks and red lips enjoyed every bite of that first snow. I didn't stop him. I have never heard of anyone getting sick from eating snow, instead, I remember the feeling of abandon in putting that cold treat to my mouth. So he ate his snow; I kept my caution under wraps and went with my assumptions that he will be more severely impacted by breathing our 2022 air than eating a handful of snow. He boarded the bus and there have been no calls from school to advise of grave illness from snow-eating.
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We'll stick with the eight year old for a moment. While together a few nights ago, I was working on the pre-Thanksgiving grocery list. He breezed by, backed up and declared, "I find your grocery list to be rather verbose." Wait, what did he just say? I asked what he knew about verbose. He explained his teacher had taught them the word, its meaning, and how to use it. Ok, he nailed it. Then he asked me to let his mom know he had used it correctly so that she could text his teacher to advise her. If the teacher receives a text from each of the 21 parents of students, they would get a special treat today - Friday. I hope they got the treat because this was either brilliance or lunacy. I was judged because my grocery list was rather lengthy and obviously verbose on the week before Thanksgiving. Gotta love an engaged teacher creating engaged learners.
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Now, just one moment on doing the right thing. The morning news included a story on a pedestrian/ car accident. The pedestrian has extensive injuries but is expected to recover. Equally important to the story, was the report of the driver staying on the scene of the accident until authorities arrived. We now report on people doing the right thing because so many people don't do the right thing anymore? It's just sad. Another news story illustrated the flip side of the story: Theranos whistle-blowers fearful of the repercussions of their testimony. Their stories are more emblematic of how doing the right thing in 2022 is often vilified. Anyway, the point is just this - we can do better people. If more of us just do the right thing when it is our time to stand up to do it - we will all be a little better off.
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