37th Anniversary of Earth Day

I suppose it's fitting for me to break my "blog" silence by posting on Earth Day.
I remember my first Earth Day. Back in 1970 I was in kindergarten. (That gives you a hint as to my age.) A cool man whose name I don't remember, but I do remember that he had long hair and a full, long beard, came to my elementary school and helped supervise us kids as we picked up trash in our playground. We each were rewarded green environmentalists stickers.

I do public relations from time to time for environmental/conservation groups. I don't think I got into it because some groovy young guy with lots of hair thought I was a good little girl. I think I have always found solice in the great outdoors.

Back in the day, when I was growing up in the western part of Suffolk County, Long Island, NY, you could take your dog for a walk in the woods. The only things you had to worry about were deer ticks. No boogey men who would molest little girls. Now and then you'd come upon kids who rode the horses that they kept at their grandma and grandpas house, as they travelled on the bridle paths. I'd hang out in a little pine tree forest with my dog, a shetland sheepdog, who I still miss. I spent 13 years walking with that dog, in the woods, and along what would later become the service road of the Long Island Expressway--before it was paved and before the neighbors felt threatened by the sight of a kid and her dog, "cutting through" their backyards.

It wasn't a quiet walk in my neighborhood, despite the rich foliage, that included lots of ferns, oaks, and firs. The roar of the big L-I-E was a constant. My house was further away, by perhaps a quarter to half a mile from what was then only a 6 lane highway. Houses on the roads closer to the Expressway heard the constant hum of tires on concrete quite a few decibals louder than I did.

I enjoyed living on Long Island....the even, wave-like rythms of the wind rustling the leaves on the trees. The salty-from-the-sea breezes that kept the pollen levels down and the air from becoming stifling humid in the summer time.

The outdoors was my place to be alone and away from the bullies that were the pretty, or cool boys and girls of the schools I went to. I wasn't trapped inside with my own thoughts. I could share them with my pets---a few years after I began my walks with my dog,our family's indoor/outdoor cat would trail after us, on a parallel course that we took through the woods.

Which leads me to ponder about the Virginia Tech murderer. Here was a young man who didn't have the solice of woods and pets. He had a suburban townhouse in Northern Virginia, but he didn't live in a time when a kid could just walk by himself, with a dog, and clear his head. I often remark to friends and acquaintences about how lucky I feel to have lived in a time when a kid could be trusted to go out on her own without her parents feeling her life was in jeopardy. We could explore the woods, or the empty areas near the fenced in rain drainage pond that are plentiful on the Island (they called them sumps.) and nobody felt like we would be accosted by some psycho sickos. I would come back from my walks with my self esteam mended by nature after a bad experiences on the school bus, school cafeteria, or classroom, all places a shy kid like me was picked on----and,two or three years before I was lucky enough to get special attention for a speech impediment----in regular school, during regular school hours, that helped me speak well. I learned how to pronounce words properly. It wasn't because I was born in a foreign land. No, I was born in Brooklyn, NY, the youngest of 3 daughters. My older sisters did a lot of talking for me. So, I needed extra help developing speech skills to properly pronounce words, and speak outload with confidence. This happened in a public school sytem.
It happened because teachers had the resources to help me.

also was lucky enough to get pulled out of regular class a few minutes, a couple times of week, to attend a special reading lab. We had the resources to get me the help I needed, without me ever feeling like I was being treated like a dumb-kid, or a slow kid in "special classes."

I can only imagine what a child today must go through, cooped up in a home and a system that didn't make him feel safe and secure. No, I'm not blaming society for the massacre at VT. They tried to help the killer. But, somehow, the killer just didn't feel like he could be helped. He didn't find solace. He was desperate for a solution and finally settled on one that nobody could fathom.