Remembrances

Yesterday was Earth Day 40 - and 40 years ago I was in High School (yes...I'm that ancient) and participated in the very first Earth Day. My friends and I skipped school for the afternoon - we left at noon. It was a semi-allowed "holiday" because more than half of the school left. The school itself was more than 2000 students, so that was a lot of us. We walked a very long way - from south Denver where our school was, to downtown Denver and the Convention Center where there were exhibits, lectures, and information about the environment. This took us about two hours of walking, but at that time in my life we did a lot of day-long walks for charity, so a couple of hours wasn't a huge deal. The exhibits were interesting and started many of us on a road to more energy efficiency and awareness. I do recall that I phoned my Mom to come and pick us up late that afternoon - it was getting pretty cold and my friends and I weren't dressed for cold or feeling up to walking another two hours in the dark.

Those were the days of Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" and Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock". It was the time when phosphates were pulled from our laundry detergents, when people recognized that hot effluence from factories were killing fish because of the temperature changes they made in rivers, and when reminders of what could happen without regulation like the infamous mercury poisoning in Japan were published in "Life" and "Look" magazines. By the end of 1970 legislation had been enacted to help the environment and the Environmental Protection Agency had been established. Those were the days when Congress actually worked. Nixon might have been a crook and embroiled us into the Vietnam war, but we had a government that actually worked for the people (in many respects) and actually accomplished things.

Today's Beading For A Cure auction items are by Pat Sohns (top) and Cat Albaugh (bottom). We're getting down to the last two weeks of the auctions for this year's fund raising efforts. Please take a look at the auctions that are up this week and bid high.