Stand in the comer.”

As I whined and sniveled at being punished, I
made the mistake of confessing that I°d missed
| the first Earth Day back in 1970. At the time, I
thought it was just a co-mingling of sex-starved
hippies in beards and print skirts (sometimes on
the same person) who had swallowed handfuls of
funny fungi and flipped.

World was not amused. World said it had heard
about me recently. From spies. Spies who actually
live with me.

World said my youngest daughter, the daughter
who keeps a plastic pail beside the sugar and
flour containers on our kitchen counter into which
she insists that all bio-degradable peelings be
tossed for subsequent composting, told it (World)
that she had seen me place an orange rind into
>} what I think of as the real garbage tin under the
sink instead of into her foul smelling plastic pail
which sits beside my food.

“And another thing,” World said shaking its ice
Real cap from side to side and pointing a peninsula in

my direction, ““What’s this I hear about you

whacking great, green branches from your trees
and burning them in an excessively smokey
manner in a back yard incinerator?”

This time it was our second daughter who had
tumed me in. She has a tree fetish and spends her
summers as a bull cook in camps full of tree
planters who spend their days stuffing tiny bits of
green into huge expanses of brown clearcut.

While I will give my little quislings a stern
lecture and let it go at that, World was not as
lenient. A full day staring at a crack where two
walls meet was not punishment enough for ie

~ likes of me, World said.

So in the morning I wrote lines like “I promise
never to use a grocery bag again — instead I will
buy only those items which fit in my pocket” 100
times each on recycled paper.

si
Earth Day not a happy time
A couple of weeks ago World held its second
Earth Day and I wasn’t allowed to go. In fact, I
was banned.
2 World said “Stay home. You’re not invited.Go  Funs”

I memorized the Green Creed — “Snuff Out
Bad Water, Air and Soil” so thoroughly I could
recite it backwards. “Lios Dnaria Retaw Dabtouf
. Surprisingly, this is the same Green Creed
in a litthke known Indian dialect spoken in
northwest Ladakh.

In the afternoon World insisted I sit and read. I
digested great tombs with titles like: “Live on
Earth 365 days a year’ (1 had planned on doing
that anyway); ‘730 Ways to Give Mouth-to-World
Resuscitation’; “Recycle Yourself — a Guide’;
and 4,789 Green-Type Things You Can Kill in
Your Home.’

During one of my discretionary, reading-break
minutes, a small delegation of family members
who, having returned from walking the good
green earth in company with like-minded neigh-
bours, presented me with a petition regarding heat
and space. It seems there are some open spaces in
our home which should be closed.

One such space is the size a medium sized
grapefruit would be if it had been run over by a
small boy riding a bicycle with wide tires. This
opening is beside a ceiling beam in our living
room and has been used over the years by insects
seeking shelter from the icy blasts of nasty
weather which crop up from time to time in our
neck of the woods.

I'd always thought of that opening as a sort of
heavenly portal through which our family could
commune with Mother Nature and gain valuable
insight into how She and we interact. Not so. My
family says Heaven’s Portal is a “bloody draft
hole that should be stuffed.”

I was also told that any stuffing left over could
go under one of the many doors sporting half-inch
deep; air-circulation strips which I had, up to now,
kept open so that adult ants and other scavengers

could enter and gather armfuls of floor crumbs for .

their little ones back home.

All in all, Earth Day 1990 was quite a learning
experience. And World, if you’re listening, I think
I'll be ready in 2010 if you decide to hold another
one.

If there’s still an Earth.

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HELPING WITH THE Jason Project at the
Royal B.C. Museum’s Newcombe Theatre Thurs-
day night staring at 7:30 p.m. will be Dr. Earl
Davis, who normally works at Sidney’s Pacific
Geoscience Centre. Davis will be demonstrating
the use of remote sensing tools used in under-
water exploration. Satellite imagery is used to
show the difficulties encountered in underwater
mapping. The museum recently opened a Jason
Hotline where people can call for more informa-
tion. Operators are standing by at 387-7907.

* kK *

IN CELEBRATION OF Earth Day, April 22,
the Sidney Girl Guides, Brownies, Beavers,
Cubs and Scouts played their part by running a
litter pick-up project along the roadsides of
Sidney. Garbage was picked up by the groups of
childreri, who then sorted it out so that it could be
processed for recycling. The girls and boys
couldn’t have done the job without help from the
Town of Sidney Public Works, who supplied

-@' garbage bags and removed all the refuse.
* kk O&

ATTENTIVE READERS MAY have noticed
the Black Brant birds on page Al4 of last week’s
newspaper appeared to be flying upside down
below Cy Hampson’s column. In fact — you
guessed it — it was the photograph that was
punted the wrong way up: We apologize for any
confusion that may have been caused to our
readers by this embarrassing mistake. We just
flipped the paper up-side-down.

** x

: WORKING FOLK WHO enjoy good poetry,
and want a funny bone tickled, will want to be in
the Nell Horth Room of the Sidney branch
library tomorrow night for a dual reading by
Canadian authors Tom Wayman and Robert
Priest. They’re sure to turn a dull evening into
‘ one you'll be talking about for months. And, it’s
free!

é

+} Jason geis help from local doctor

* * Ok

ENVIRONMENTALLY-CONSCIOUS
PENINSULA students from Kindergarten to
Grade 7 will be offered a two-hour tour of the
Saanich Forestry Centre to celebrate National
Forest Week, which runs from May 7 to May 13.
The tour will be provided by Canadian Pacific
Forest Products Ltd. and will involve a visit 1o
the company’s tree seed orchards and its seedling
nurseries. And a lecture on forestry practices will
definitely be provided. For further information,
contact Marie Robertson at 652-4023. Also
sharing the same week is National Nurses’ Week
(May # - May 13). Nurses plan to use the
Opportunity to promote greater environmental
awareness. Meanwhile the Town of Sidney has
declared this same week to be Multiple Sclerosis
Awareness Week, as well as Lions Vision
Awareness Week — which is sponsored by the
Lions Clubs in Canada.

* kK

676 KITTYHAWK SQUADRON Royal
Canadian Air Cadets is thanking the merchants
of Sidney — who are too many to list — for the
donations of gifts for the Annual Cadet/Parent
Banquet, which was held on April 19. Some 175
people were in attendance of the very successful

event.
x KX

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