David’s mom always said…
No, David!
No, David, no!
David! Be Quiet!
Don’t play with your food!
I said no, David!
Davey, come here.
Yes, David…
I love you!
                                                           from No, David!
                               written and illustrated by David Shannon
                                                    Blue Sky Press, 1998
    I don’t remember it this way, but I think my childhood was fraught with negativity. Here are some phrases I remember:
        Give a hoot! Don’t pollute.
        Just say no!
        No pain, no gain.
        Don’t smoke.
        Don’t forget to brush your teeth.
    Where are all the positive statements? I just don’t know. But with Earth Day in the rearview mirror (April 22 each year) and the 150th anniversary of Arbor Day coming up this Friday, April 29 (always the last Friday in April), I started thinking about this Earth we share. My thoughts tend to travel down the path to recycling, so I decided to investigate how that’s working out; I’ll call it The Great American Recycling Experiment. If that sounds a bit skeptical, it is. I’m trying to stay positive, but, that childhood. Hmmm. 
    In November 2021, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a 60 page downloadable booklet filled with lots of goals and objectives to make our recycling system more economically circular. From the EPA booklet, “A circular economy is an industrial system that is restorative or regenerative by design.” It is the opposite of the linear system we have now. That kind of system mines, harvests, or extracts resources, makes stuff, then throws most of it away. The object of the circular economy is to use less materials and re-use more, so there’s less to throw away.  
    The booklet is full of goals and objectives, color photos, and charts. To give you an idea of the contents, here’s the last part of the first paragraph of the introductory letter. “…it’s time to transform the United States recyling (sic) system.” 
    Two good things come immediately to mind. First, the government is aware of pollution (air, land, and water), energy waste, and inefficiencies. And second, government workers are studying the multi-faceted problem and writing about it. (I only found that one typo.)
    ComfyLiving.net, a website that advises consumers on remodeling and redecorating projects, has weighed in on consumer issues regarding recycling. I found some interesting facts on a page they call “29 Recycling Statistics We Need to Be Aware of in 2022.” Here's the link.

• In 2018, (the latest available data from the EPA) the recycling rate was 32.1%.
• Of that 32.1%, metals made up about 12.62%, plastics about 4.5%.
• About 68% of paper is recycled.
• Every 3-foot-high stack of newspaper that’s recycled can spare a tree.
• About 1 billion (1,000,000,000) plastic bags were used in the US every day in 2014. (No wonder so many flap like stuck birds fluttering in branches along the highways.)
• People around the world buy 20,000 plastic bottles every second. We use 50 billion in the US every year. 
• Only about 12% of the plastic generated is recycled.
• Plastic needs about 1,000 years to degrade if it’s thrown in a landfill or lays in the gutter or lands on your lawn. 
• By 2050 (less than 30 years from now) the oceans will have more plastic in them than fish.

    In the United States, only about 28% of what could be recycled is actually recycled. Recycling is more expensive than throwing our trash in landfills. The cost of recycling is $147 per ton while dumping it in a landfill costs $28 per ton. And the recycling industry creates more and higher paying jobs than the solid waste management industry.
    But much more than money is involved in keeping ourselves and our planet healthy. 
    There are many reasons to reduce, re-use, and recycle. Recycled materials can replace raw materials so there’s less need for mining, cutting down trees, and other extraction processes. Recycling reduces the amount of raw materials needed to be processed, and statistics confirm it. Recycling solid waste reduces air and water pollution.
    But Reduce (use less stuff) Reuse (up-cycle, keep single use items and make something else from them) Recycle (put your stuff in the correct bin, after you make sure it is clean and really is what can be accepted) only goes so far.
    My fourth R is Refuse. Refuse styrofoam, especially. Also Refuse single-use plastic bags, bottles, straws, single-serving sized anything. REDUCE the amount you buy in the first place. RE-USE whatever you can. When you RECYCLE, play by the rules. Some areas separate cans, glass, and paper. Rinse cans and bottles. Only put in containers what your recycling center allows. They can’t take everything. When we play by the rules, everyone wins.
    Remember my fourth R: REFUSE. (And remember you heard it here first!) 
    Did you know that if you stress the first syllable of a word you have a noun, but if you stress the second syllable, it’s a verb. So contest/contest, object/object, refuse/refuse are called heteronyms. Here’s a whole list from the University of Michigan.
    If you refuse the single-use throw-away thing-y you’re offered, it will NOT become refuse.
    Chief Seattle might have been the first to say, “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” 
    A little later, Kofi Annan quoted an African proverb, “The world is not ours, the Earth is not ours. It's a treasure we hold in trust for future generations. And I often hope we will be worthy of that trust.”
                                -—stay curious! (and use less plastic!)

    “Real isn’t how your are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
    “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
    “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
                                             from The Velveteen Rabbit
                                    written by Marjory Williams Bianco
                                          illustrated by William Nicholson
                                Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1922

    Miss Kimack, my Kindergarten teacher, was probably well aware of the power magical thinking held over her classroom of 5-year-olds. When she asked us, “Who forgot to put the crayons away?” or “Who left the restroom light on?” or “Who spilled water all over the floor?” we’d all look at each other, but no one spoke. Not wanting to be accusatory, she’d throw up her hands and say, “Well, it must have been Mr. Nobody.” Someone would be assigned the particular task, or we’d work together. 
    I’m sure she had no idea that my little brother would engage so thoroughly with the Nobodys. When I suggested Mr. Nobody forgot to hang up my jacket, my mother didn’t believe me, but my brother conjured up a whole family. They might even have had a dog. Mr. and Mrs. Nobody and their little girl, Karen, and her siblings whose names I’ve forgotten, lived with us for a long time. They weren’t naughty, but they helped us stay out of trouble.
    The Nobodys were not True, but they were Real. And the question What is real? is different from the question What is true? Truth can be proven. Grass is green. Fish depend on oxygen in their water. Washington DC is the Capital of the United States.
    Mathematics depends on proofs. Statements of reason and deduction follow each other in a logical order to prove a conclusion is true. Scientific premises are determined through experiments that can be replicated. Geographers and cartographers use calibrated measurement tools to show where on Earth a land mass or a mountain or a wild animal preserve is in relation to other formations and places. (This same idea also works in inner and outer space.)
    Reality is a bit more subjective.
    The Skin Horse told the Velveteen Rabbit “…[O]nce you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” Red Blond, my older daughter’s babydoll used to be pretty. Now, Red Blond’s beauty lives within my daughter, alone.
    Just like the Velveteen Rabbit and his friends, lots of kids have closets full of toys that party when the lights go out, and suitcases full of cars that zoom and zip around after everyone is asleep. 
    Magical thinking is a psychological term used to describe a young child’s belief in their ability to control their immediate environment by wishing a thing was really so. A young child might believe that holding a special stone will cause pizza to appear on the dinner table. Or they might believe their stuffed rabbit can really talk. A research study conducted several years ago concluded that magical thinking helps children be more creative. 
    Sadly, for most of us reality becomes much more concrete by the time we’re about 10 years old. Wishing won’t make me thin or graceful. Grasping a stone will not ensure someone else will cook and serve dinner. I know my cats can’t really talk. 
    But I can pretend. 
    Truth is true facts, mostly. Even though it’s a theory, gravity is an example of Truth. Given the right conditions, an oak tree will grow from an acorn, never from a maple seed. Death in all its complexity and simplicity is True, too.
    Reality is more subjective. Beauty is defined differently in different cultures. The meaning of a poem or a symphony depends in large part on the creator and the participant. And a little boy’s sawdust-stuffed rabbit can believe it is Real. 
    While Truth endures because of its particular qualities, gravity, magnetism, and such, Reality endures because of its emotional connections formed by people with similar beliefs. 
    The Velveteen Rabbit has endured for 100 years (and has never gone out of print and doesn’t show any signs of doing so) because Marjory Williams Bianco still gives adults, far away from the magical thinking of our childhoods, another chance to feel the pure emotions of childhood and gives us the opportunity to share that magic with a child, if we are lucky. 
    The games a boy plays with his toy rabbit and the comfort that the toy rabbit gives back to his boy are undeniably, unfalteringly, and unconditionally Real. 
    The University of Pennsylvania has digitized the text of Mrs. Bianco’s story and William Nicholson’s original illustrations. Enjoy them here. 
                  -—stay curious! (and keep believing in what is Real)

…you can’t really see atoms, either: But you can think of them as extremely tiny building blocks that make much bigger stuff, like stars and planets.
    Yes, exactly like Uranus, or Jupiter, or Mars.
                                       from How to Bake a Universe
                                                written by Alec Carvlin
                                              illustrated by Brian Biggs
                                         Norton Young Readers, 2022

    Last Friday, April 8, 2022, Axiom launched Dragon from SpaceX’s site on Cape Canaveral. A little less than 27 hours later, it successfully docked with the International Space Station. Their plan is to stay at the ISS for eight days then return to Earth in a splashdown off the coast of Florida. It’s a first for an all-civilian crew. 
    The four international astronauts will conduct over 25 experiments in preparation for building and running a private space station. The research will include collecting information from “human health considerations to novel infrastructure and design for our future homes away from Earth…” from Axiom's website While Axiom is its own company, it is working in partnership with SpaceX.
    Using TESSERAE technology, one experiment will focus on different methods of self-assembly to produce necessary components of the Space Station. They will also investigate the effect of a microgravity environment on cancer cells. A Japanese company will demonstrate the ability of light to enhance air quality to “convert volatile compounds in the air into carbon dioxide and water…” from Axiom's website 
    A variety of health data will be collected from each of the astronauts and centralized in a research database. They are expected to find how long-distance and long-duration space travel will affect human health and how to prepare for the demands made by long-lasting and faraway trips including to the Moon and eventually, to Mars.
    Axiom’s long-term goal is to build privately owned Space Stations within Earth’s orbit. According to their website, they want to sustain human growth away from Earth and to provide untold benefits for all humans everywhere. 
    That sounds like science fiction to me. Thinking about robots, holographic transport, and AI feels like I’m stepping off the universe, ungrounded, incredibly exciting and unbelievably scary at the same time. 
    I struggle with finding balance in my life. I love being able to see my grandkids and kids whenever I want, sorta. FaceTime, Zoom, sending silly and beautiful and inspiring photos makes my life wonderful. At the same time, I’m very OK with my dumb TV (without cable), a grocery list I keep on paper with a pencil that I actually sharpen, and lights that I turn on and off manually. I like the TV clicker, even though I don’t have a clue about why it works.
    And I love my solar panels! (See this space on June 9, 2020 for my over?simplification of how they work.)
    An English professor of mine once explained Chaucer in his time; he had one foot in his century and his other foot on a banana peel. Chaucer was born in 1342 or maybe 1343, just before the Black Death killed 1/3 of the population (1348-1359). He died in 1400, at the precipice of Richard II’s turbulent reign. So, Chaucer, like all of us moderns, lived during a time of great societal change. The Peasant’s Revolt, corrupt religious institutions, and pervasive ill-health all influenced him and his writing. He coped as we all do by looking for meaning in his everyday. He wrote about it.
    But change is inevitable. And necessary. It’s the current pace of change that makes living with it difficult for many of us.
    I remember when a long distance phone call was complicated and expensive. Now astronauts communicate in outer space, with each other and with us. I remember when a phone had a dial and a dial tone, and a chord, but no camera, internet connection, or Solitaire. Everyone watched "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "All in the Family" at the same time each week. Weekly magazines kept up with the news. Real journalists told the truth as best as they could understand it. 
    We are being catapulted into a future almost faster than time itself. My coping strategies: Breathe deep, spend time in nature, and enjoy the ride!
                         -—stay curious! (and embrace the future) 

    “I never found one before,” I said, surprised. “How’d they get here, in our field?”
    “How do you think, Reb?” Amos went back to chopping at the dirt. “This was Indian land long before it was ours. How do you reckon arrowheads got here?”
    Finding that arrowhead had a powerful effect on me because I had never before thought about Indians living on the same ground where we lived now. …looking at that little gray-colored arrowhead gave me a peculiar feeling.
                                               from Crooked River
                                                  by Shelley Pearsall
                 Random House Children’s Books/Yearling, 2008
    
    I’m sometimes accused of being opposed to progress. If progress means ripping trees out by their roots to plant a one-stop grocery/big box retail store, or finding more uses for plastic, or passing legislation permitting more and more deadly weapons in our towns and cities, I am opposed to progress. 
    But, what if Ohio becomes home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site? I’d call that progress.
    Last month (March, 2022) the National Park Service announced that the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks is being considered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's World Heritage Committee as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Earthworks has been on The Tentative List since 2008, and has just received its place in the Nomination File. The site will be reviewed by the Advisory Bodies in 2023, and, if approved, the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks will take their place alongside the Pyramids of Giza, the Great Wall of China, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Stonehenge, and the Everglades, the Galapagos Islands and the Taj Mahal.  
    Over 1,000 World Heritage Sites are divided into three categories. Some are cultural, some are natural, and some are a combination of both cultural and natural. UNESCO's website says “[t]o be included on the World Heritage List, sites must be of outstanding universal value and meet at least one out of ten selection criteria … The criteria are regularly revised by the Committee to reflect the evolution of the World Heritage concept itself.” You can find the current list of criteria here. Click here for their list of sites.
    In 1972, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) drafted an agreement to document a plan to conserve natural and cultural properties around the world.   
    The sites are all more than special. They are important markers of human civilization, places of extraordinary natural formations, and homes to unique and in many cases endangered plants and animals. 
    The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks is really a complex of several locations in central and southwestern Ohio. The nine different locations are now archeological sites. They were originally constructed by the Hopewell people during the Woodland Period (1-1000 CE, in the Common Era). It is believed that the massive, geometrical structures were used for ceremonial purposes. They were probably also a way to calculate astronomical patterns and mark time. 
    Along the Scioto River near Chillicothe in southwestern Ohio, you’ll find geometric structures made of earth. Over 2,000 years ago, indigenous peoples met here, traded here, used the place for sacred ceremonies. You can see examples of tools the Hopewell made and used, learn which crops they grew, and what kinds of animals they hunted. A wide variety of many types of finely crafted objects have been discovered during excavations of the various mounds. 
    Southwestern Ohio is also home to Fort Ancient. Here the people used deer and elk shoulder bones, clamshell hoes, and digging sticks to move approximately 550,000 cubic yards of soil to build 18,000 linear feet of earthen walls. It took 19 generations to complete the work. Inside the linear walls, four circular mounds accurately predict the 18.6-year lunar cycle. 
    Several huge octagon- and circle-shaped earthworks in central Ohio are 1,200 feet in diameter. Their five- to 14-feet high walls surround a moat that is between 8 and 13 feet deep. The Newark Earthworks includes the Octagon Earthworks, a structure of eight 550-foot-long walls which are five to six feet high and enclose 50 acres of land. The Octagon was also used to record the complicated rising and setting cycles of the moon and track the 18.6-year lunar calendar.
    The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks are the largest earthworks in the world not used as fortifications or defensive structures. As stated in the Newark Earthworks Center blog, “Their extraordinary size, beauty, and precision make them outstanding examples of architectural form, landscape design, and human creative genius.”     
    The Great Serpent Mound is expected be part of the next group of sites to try for the UNESCO designation. It was built several hundred years after the Hopewell Mounds. Only about three feet high, its 1/4 mile length makes it the largest surviving example of an effigy mound. Although not used for burials, the Serpent may have served as a shrine. A 120 x 60 foot oval at the western edge of the mound has been interpreted as the snake’s head, its eye, or maybe an egg it is holding in its mouth and points directly to the Summer Solstice.
    If the Earthworks is selected as a World Heritage Site as expected, archeologists, anthropologists, geologists and tourists will come. And stay. And spend money on hotels, food, and entertainment. It is expected that tourism in the area will at least double in just three years. We current residents of Ohio have the opportunity to showcase the extraordinary cultural contribution made by Native Ohioans. 
    We can conserve the monuments they built and honor the land we took from them if we are careful not to overbuild those hotels, restaurants, and entertainment venues. 
                           -—stay curious! (and honor your heritage)