9/11/10 - Belatedly

This is for yesterday, when I thought I'd return from a fund raiser for the kids' school early enough to write.  Clearly, I misjudged.  I hadn't counted on a great bluegrass band being involved and stories about the early years of the kids' school.  (They attend a public school that started in 1994 and is called the Environmental School.)  The completely disarming thing about the fund raiser was that nearly half of the attendees were alumni: kids in their teens and early 20's.  They got up and told stories about falling into creeks and petitioning City Hall and being ushered through their early years by people who cared about them and the planet.  One round-eyed boy with a crew cut got up and sang.  It was very moving to realize that at one time, that bright-eyed bearded young man and that lithe, long-haired young woman were the ages of my kids.  Whatever happened for them at the school was meaningful enough that they showed up last night to talk about it.