Shade Tree Wisdom 10/16/10

I used a napkin today that had this printed on one edge:
“100% recycled fiber with a minimum of 40%
Post-consumer material,
Processed chlorine free,
Printed with water based inks.”
Isn’t that informative. It really tells me much more than I want to know, or even need to know, when I use this napkin.

I suppose that printing is there because of a law, or because of being afraid of being sued if it is not there. And it points to what is bothering many folks these days.

A recent article in the Houston Chronicle was titled, “How Did We Ever Survive Childhood?” It points out how we survived riding bikes without proper helmets or knee pads, how we went barefoot everywhere, including wading in bayous, how we went riding by clinging to dad on his motorcycle, how we waited for dad to come home and riding from the road to the yard on the running board.

And bullying. It seems to be on the rise, and is everywhere debated and considered and a cause for fear and what else. I would like to offer a letter taken from the Houston Chronicle for October 14 or 15. I am just offering the letter with no comment. Here it is:
“When I was a kid, a much larger boy used to chase me down every day when we got off the bus and beat me up. I finally complained to my dad about it, and he said, “Why don’t you hit him on the head with a Coke bottle”?
There were always refund Coke bottles strewn around. So the next morning on the way to the bus I found and strategically hid a Coke bottle.
When we got off the bus at the end of the day, sure enough he chased me all the way to the Coke bottle, where I reached down, picked it up and smacked him on the head.
I was never bullied again”.

Can you imagine that happening today? School boards would meet, the bus driver would be ‘relieved of duty’, families would stand in line, some cheering, some disputing, and the thing would be cause for wise comments on TV, in the papers, and on the networks.

But that is how such things used to be settled, quietly, often unheralded, and permanently.
Another letter in the same issue speaks of government trying to solve all our problems and protect us from every conceivable danger and ends like this:
“We, the American people, must at some point in our lives start taking care of our problems all by ourselves.”

For you and me, the Baptized children of God, the answer always lies here. “Do not put your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.. . . Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord His God.” Psalm 146, 3.5. For “The Lord shall reign forever.” V.10

GPD 10/16/10