Just turn on the news. We've heard it all. Another shooting, another kid caught in trouble, another reason for us to sigh and say, "Kids these days!"
Then you hear or read about one, and a bit of hope returns.
That's what happened when i heard about Hunter Gandee. There was an infusion of hope.
Hunter is 14, and on the wrestling team in high school. His 7-year-old brother, Braden, has Cerebral Palsy, and cannot walk without assistance.
Hunter wanted to put a face on the disease, and encourage more research into ways to help kids like his brother become and stay mobile. So he planned, and pulled off, a two day, 40 mile walk to bring this disease into the spotlight.
A 40 mile walk with his little brother strapped to his back.
When i think about kids these days, i want to think about kids like Hunter.
Today is
Abolition Day -- French Guiana
Alcoholics Anonymous Founders Day
Army Day -- Jordan
Ball Point Pen Day -- date, in 1943, Biro patented one of the early models of a ball point pen (it was as awful as the other early ones, though!)
Birthday of Cheng Huang -- Taiwan (the gods that are city guardians are celebrated with a procession of actors on stilts doing dragon and lion dances on this 13th day of the fifth moon)
Celtic Tree Month Duir (Oak) commences
Dia de Portugal e de Camoes -- Portugal (National Day)
Guan Sheng Di Jun Dan -- Taoism (Heavenly Sage Guan Di's Birthday [god of war])
Herbs & Spices Day
Holiday of the Wan Thing -- Fairy Calendar (the Wan Thing arrived in Fairyland this day and has sat there looking wan ever after, so the Fairies decided to give it its own holiday)
National Black Cow Day
National Iced Tea Day
Petit Jean Antique Auto Show and Swap Meet -- Morrilton, AR, US (sponsored by the Museum of Automobiles in Morrilton, and the place to be if you love old cars; through Saturday)
Rape of Lidice/Lidice Memorial Day -- Czech Republic and Slovakia/New Jersey, US (in one of the most-remembered atrocities of WWII, the small town of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, was invaded by Nazi troops who murdered every man, burned every house, and sent all the women and children for "reeducation.")
Reconciliation Day -- Republic of the Congo
St. Brigid of Ireland's Day (Patron babies/infants/newborns, blacksmiths, boatmen/mariners/sailors/watermen, cattle, children whose parents are not married, dairymaids/dairy workers, fugitives, midwives, nuns, poets, poultry farmers, printing presses, scholars, travellers; Douglas, Lanarkshire, Scotland; Ireland; Ivrea, Turin, Italy; Kildare, Ireland; Leinster, Ireland)
Steamboat Days -- Burlington, IA, US (fun on the Mississippi Riverfront; through Sunday)
Where the Wild Things Are Day -- birth anniversary of Maurice Sendak
World Pet Memorial Day -- some sites say this is always on June 10, others that it's always on the second Tuesday in June, but none can tell us where it came from or who started it that i can find
Anniversary Tday:
Alcoholics Anonymous is founded, 1925
Birthdays Today:
Joey Zimmerman, 1986
Tara Lipinski, 1982
Leelee Sobieski, 1982
Hoku Ho, 1981
Shane West, 1978
Doug McKeon, 1966
Elizabeth Hurley, 1965
Linda Evangelista, 1965
Jeanne Tripplehorn, 1963
Michael Burger, 1957
John Edwards, 1953
Jeff Greenfield, 1943
F. Lee Bailey, 1933
Maurice Sendak, 1928
Nat Hentoff, 1925
Judy Garland, 1922
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, 1921
Saul Bellow, 1915
Frederick Loewe, 1904
Hattie McDaniel, 1889
Debuting/Premiering Today:
"Tales from the Crypt"(TV), 1989
"Paperback Writer"(UK song release), 1966
"Tristan und Isolde"(Opera), 1865
Today in History:
Frederick Barbarossa drowns leading his troops across the Saleph River to attack Jerusalem in the Crusades, 1190
The first American log cabin is built, at Fort Christina in Wilmington, Delaware, 1639
Bridget Bishop becomes the first person hanged for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, 1692
Captain James Cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef, 1770
A landslide dam on the Dadu River created by an earthquake ten days earlier collapses, killing 100,000 in the Sichuan province of China, 1786
The Jardin des Plantes museum opens in Paris; a year later, it becomes the first public zoo, 1793
The first Boat Race between the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge takes place, 1829
Myall Creek Massacre in Australia: 28 Aboriginal Australians are murdered, 1838
The first class of the United States Naval Academy students graduate, 1854
Mount Tarawera in New Zealand erupts, killing 153 people and destroying the famous Pink and White Terraces, 1886
Americus Callahan of Chicago patents the window envelope, 1902
The inaugural service for the United Church of Canada, a union of Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregationalist churches, is held in Toronto Arena, 1925
Dr. Robert Smith takes his last drink, and Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Akron, Ohio, United States, by him and Bill Wilson, 1925
Six-Day War ends: Israel and Syria agree to a cease-fire, 1967
Apple ships its first Apple II personal computer, 1977
The Spirit Rover is launched, beginning NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission, 2003
Twenty inches of rainfall in Escambia County, Florida damages roadways and bridges, and leaving parts of the Florida Panhandle and coastal Alabama under water, 2012
German authorities are forced to evacuate 10 villages as heavy rains swell the Elbe River, breaching its banks, 2013
Heavy monsoon rains cause the collapse of a partially-finished building on a residential block in Mumbai, India, 2013
Are children getting greedier? Or are children just children, no matter the century?
That's the question i asked myself when i saw the story comparing the list of what children asked for back in 1913, as compared to 2013.
The lists were as follows:
1913
Candy
Nuts
Rocking horse
Doll
Mittens/gloves
Toy Train
Oranges
Books
Handkerchiefs
Skates
2013
Furby Boom
Teksta Robotic puppy
LeapPad Ultra
Flying Fairy
Big Hugs Elmo
Barbie Dream House
Giggle Monkey
Nerf Gun
Ninja Turtles
Lego
The stark contrasts between the lists, and the fact that kids letters to Santa a hundred years ago often included basic necessities, has led people to assume that kids today are much more greedy.
Is it that they are greedier, or is it much more complicated than that?
The fact is, most kids today in the part of the world where these lists were written have the majority of their needs met. They get candy coming out of the wazoo, and oranges and nuts are available year 'round in the local grocery story instead of being an exotic treat. A hundred or more years ago, books could be a treasure (just ask Abe Lincoln) and most kids asked for toys that their friends had, which included dolls and toy trains.
When i read the Little House books, i was always intrigued by what the girls got in their stockings. But if Laura and Mary were alive today, even if they were living on a farm in South Dakota, would they be content now with candy, and a penny, and a new tin cup each so they wouldn't have to share? Or would they, being surfeited with candy after Halloween, and having enough dishes in the kitchen to make sharing a cup unnecessary, not to mention the fact that the pennies wouldn't do much for them, be asking for what their friends have and what they see on TV?
Is it really so different today? Kids who don't need mittens because they not only have them, but ride to school in a bus or car instead of walking in the snow (uphill, both ways, as the stories go) are much more likely to opt for a toy than a piece of clothing. Children who watch TV and see other kids with these toys are going to want them. Have the kids become greedier because the price tags associated with the toys pitched to them have gone up?
Has the fact that you can hardly go into a store and buy a toy that isn't a tech gadget taught them to expect tech gadgets? Especially when the parents have tech gadgets? When i went to get a "learning toy" for one child, i gave up on finding something that wasn't a "push the buttons" toy. Instead, i bought that toy and extra batteries, so the beleaguered mother wouldn't have to worry about running out for a while
Perhaps to a degree, and among children who get their every wish every year, there is more greed. That might say more about the parents, though, who don't teach kids realistic limits than it says about children who are trained to expect things to be a certain way. In C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, he points out that a child who sees a different type of fish knife at another person's house will think, comparing them to the fish knives at her own home, that "those aren't proper fish knives at all." Children think what they are trained in until they get old enough to go out into the world and get more information for themselves, and a child trained to believe he should get what he asks for at Christmas is going to ask, and not see it as greed, but as normal.
A wish list in a country where children aren't as secure as most are in our part of the world would read very differently, which leads me to believe that kids are pretty much the same. They are told to ask for something they would like, and they take cues from the environment, what others around them have or want, if their basic needs are already met. If those are not met, they ask for those things.
Maybe greed is a relative term.
Today is:
Agonalia -- Ancient Roman Empire; also observed
Festival for Diva Palatua -- guardian of Palatine Hill
Septimonia -- to honor the Seven Hills of Rome
Feast of Sekhmet, Bast, and Ra -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (goddess of warfare, feline goddess, and sun god; date approximate)
Fourth Republic Day -- Madagascar
International Mountain Day -- UN
Jashan-e Sadeh / Adar-Jashen -- Zoroastrian/Parsi (a mid-winter fire ceremony for purification; date approximate)
National Day / Republic Day -- Burkina Faso
National Noodle Ring Day
Nose-Scrambling and Hair-Hiking Events -- Fairy Calendar
Pampanga Day -- Pampanga Province, Philippines
Remembrance Day of Llywelyn II -- Wales (death anniversary of Llywelyn the Last, the last native-born Prince of Wales, killed in battle in 1282)
St. Damasus' Day (Patron of archaeologists)
St. Pens' Day (Patron of Llanberis, Wales)
Tango Day -- Buenos Aires, Argentina (birth anniversary of both Julio de Caro and Carlos Gardel)
Anniversaries Today:
Unicef is established, 1946
Edward VIII abdicates, 1936
Indiana becomes the 19th US State, 1816
Birthdays Today:
Rider Strong, 1979
Gary Dourdan, 1966
Curtis Williams, 1962
Jermaine Jackson, 1954
Ken Wahl, 1953
Susan Seidelman, 1952
Teri Garr, 1949
Brenda Lee, 1944
John Kerry, 1943
Donna Mills, 1943
Rita Moreno, 1931
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1918
Carlo Ponti, 1913
Naguib Mahfouz, 1911
Marjorie H. Buell, 1904
Fiorello LaGuardia, 1882
Annie Jump Cannon, 1863
Robert Koch, 1843
Debuting/Premiering Today:
"Magnum, PI"(TV), 1980
Today in History:
Honoratus, the first known Prefect of the City of Constantinople, takes office, 359
Llywelyn the Last (born c. 1228) the last native Prince of Wales, is killed at Cimeri, 1282
The Aurora Borealis is seen from New England by English settlers for the first time, 1719
The first newspaper on Curacao is published, the Curacao Gazette & Commercial Advertiser, 1812
Nitrous oxide is used in dental work for the first time in Hartford, Connecticut, 1844
Boston's Bijou Theatre becomes the first American theater lit exclusively by electricity, premiering Gilbert and Sullivan's "Iolanthe" as its first performance, 1882
The New Zealand Parliament Buildings are almost completely destroyed by fire, 1907
Color moving pictures are demonstrated in Madison Square Garden, 1909
The Boll Weevil Monument is dedicated in Enterprise, Alabama, 1919
The British Parliament enacts the Statute of Westminster 1931, establishing legislative equality between the self-governing dominions of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of Canada, the Irish Free State, Dominion of Newfoundland, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa, 1931
Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, takes his last drink and enters treatment for the last time, 1934
Arthur Lucas, convicted of murder, is the last person to be executed in Canada, 1962
Apollo 17 becomes the sixth and last Apollo mission to land on the Moon, 1972
The Kyoto Protocol opens for signature, 1997
The People's Republic of China joins the World Trade Organization, 2001
"Ptui! Yuck!" Little Girl was not pleased with whatever-it-was, i could tell by the noises, and the funny faces.
What happened? i asked.
"Well, I wasn't sure what this was," she said, holding up a travel size bottle of hand sanitizer. "I thought it might by some kind of fragrance spray or something, but when I pushed this side, it opened toward me and I got a face full of sanitizer!"
"That's yuck, all right," Young Jacob commented, walking in wearing only one shoe and with a bit of blood on the other foot.
"Okay, what did you do this time?" Little Girl asked.
"I stepped on a piece of glass," he answered. "Could you get me a bandage?"
"Where is the other shoe?" she asked as she pulled out the first-aid kit and rummaged.
"I don't know. I lost it somewhere here yesterday."
So, you've been wearing only one shoe since yesterday? i grinned, knowing he had been at work, so he hadn't.
"No, I wore my work shoes, but now I'm trying to find the other one. It's your fault, because I think your house ate it!"
Or it's under the chair you were sitting in yesterday, i noted drily as i pulled up the chair cover and pulled it out.
"Oops!" he grinned back at me as Little Girl stuck the bandage on.
Then he got up to walk away without putting the shoe on!
Sometimes i wonder about kids these days -- then again, i understand Aristotle thought the same sort of thing.
Today is
Ascension of Jesus -- Orthodox Christians on the Julian Calendar
Career Nursing Assistants' Day
Day of the Living Children of Nut -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)
Feast of Epona -- Ancient Celtic Calendar (Rhiannon in Wales, Macha in Ireland, guardian goddess of horses, stables, horse owners, agriculture, and transportation; date approximate, and disputed, she was the only Celtic goddess worshiped by the Romans, and they celebrated her on December 18)
First-in-Line and Queue-Jumping Tournament -- Fairy Calendar
Fort Union Trading Post Rendezvous -- Williston, ND, US (re-creation of the fur trade era; through Sunday)
Glenn Miller Birthplace Society Festival -- Clarinda, IA, US (come celebrate the music of an era; through Sunday)
Ides of June -- Ancient Roman Calendar; related observances:
Festival of Jupiter Invictus (Jupiter the Unconquered)
Lesser Quinquartrus/Quinquatrus Minusculae (festival for those who played flutes at religious ceremonies; through the 15th)
Kiamichi Owa-Chito Festival of the Forest -- Beaver's Bend State Park, Broken Bow, OK, US (celebration of Native American culture; through Saturday)
Kitchen Klutzes of America Day
Kuopio Dance Festival -- Kuopio, Finland (exotic dance art by familiar and new artists from around the world on the sunlit summer nights; through next Wednesday)
Roller Coaster Day -- the world's first "Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway", patented by LaMarcus Thompson, opened on this day in 1884 on Coney Island, at a cost of five cents per ride
Sam Steele Days -- Cranbrook, BC, Canada (fun for all, celebrating the life and legend of Sam Steele of the North-West Mounted Police in the 1880's; through Sunday)
Sewing Machine Day -- why this day is anyone's guess, but we must admit it's a useful invention
St. Anthony of Padua's Day, the "Hammer of Heretics" (Patron of amputees, animals, asses, boatmen, domestic animals, elderly people, expectant mothers, faith, fishermen, harvests, horses, mail, mariners, Native Americans, oppressed people, paupers, poor people, sailors, seeksers of lost objects, starving people, swineherds, Tigua Indians, travel hostesses, travellers, watermen; Amantea, Italy; Anzio, Italy; Brazil; Cianciana, Italy; Dorado, Puerto Rico; Favara, Italy; Ferrazzano, Italy; Giano Vetusto, Italy; Lisbon, Portugal; Nocolosi, Italy; Padua, Italy; Portugal; San Antonio Tiayacapan, Mexico; San Fulgencio, Spain; Sandia Indian Pueblo; against barrenness, shipwreck, starvation, and sterility)
a municipal holiday in Lisbon, Portugal and parts of Spain
Tano/Surinal -- North Korea (Spring Festival)
Weed Your Garden Day -- a reminder to get out there and do a bit each day, so the little buggers don't get out of hand
Anniversaries Today:
Martin Luther marries Katharina von Bora, 1525
Birthdays Today:
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, 1986
Raz-B, 1985
Rivers Cuomo, 1970
Jamie Walters, 1969
Ally Sheedy, 1962
Tim Allen, 1953
Richard Thomas, 1951
Malcolm McDowell, 1943
Siegfried Fischbacher, 1939
Christo, 1935
Paul Lynde, 1926
Ralph Edwards, 1913
Red Grange, 1903
Dorothy L. Sayers, 1893
Basil Rathbone, 1892
William Butler Yeats, 1865
Today in History:
Coronation of Alexander III as King of Scots, 1249
Ibn Battuta, who was to become the foremost world traveler of his day, seeing most of the known world in his time, begins his first hadj, 1325
Rhode Island becomes the first of Britain's North American colonies to ban the importation of slaves, 1774
Mission San Luis Rey de Francia is founded, 1798
Meriwether Lewis and four companions sight the Great Falls of the Missouri River, 1803
A fire devastates much of Vancouver, British Columbia, 1886
King Ludwig II of Bavaria is found dead in Lake Starnberg south of Munich at 11:30 PM, 1886
Yukon Territory is formed, with Dawson chosen as its capital, 1898
The University of the Philippines College of Engineering is established, the largest degree granting unit in the Philippines, 1910
Mir Mine, the first diamond mine in the USSR, is discovered, 1955
The United States Supreme Court rules in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them, 1966
Thurgood Marshall is nominated to become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, 1967
Fahd becomes King of Saudi Arabia upon the death of his brother, Khalid, 1982
Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to leave the solar system, 1983
President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea meets Kim Jong-il, leader of North Korea, for the beginning of the first ever inter-Korea summit, 2000
The US withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, 2002
The Al Askari Mosque is bombed for a second time, 2007
A capsule of Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa returns to Earth with particles of asteroid 25143 Itokawa, 2010
