Raised on Nature

On this last day of Earth month, I have a confession - my dad's an Earth nut. He loves nature! As far as I know, he always has. Growing up with him meant spending time trailing behind him attending Audubon monthly meetings, visiting the Audubon lot, marking trails, checking bird boxes and more nature-ry stuff. On a family vacation, we canoed down a river and collected trash, wrote an article and it was published in the local newspaper.

He also had a vegetable garden. We were forced to eat beets (never really liked these but I could get them down), okra (I actually loved these) and cauliflower (these I hated so much I would cry to get out of eating them). But he also built us a dock on a very mucky pond. We had a club and the initiation meant slogging through knee high mud. He built a tree house that gave us an excellent advantage in neighborhood acorn wars. 

However, at some point in my young years I became aware of something called a television. Everyone I knew had one. So naturally, I wanted one. I asked my dad, no pleaded with my dad, for a TV. He pointed to the electric outlet and invited me to stare at it until something interesting happened. (I’m not kidding, he really said that). Well, nothing interesting happened. So I went outside, and like any good Florida girl, amused myself by catching lizards. Well, their tails anyway. Lizards are really quite fast. So if anyone is to blame for the many lizards that lost their tails near my house, it would be my dad’s stance on TV.

But other than some remorse for the many tailless lizards (I’m so glad those tails grow back), I have no regrets for being raised on nature. Nature is, after all, pretty awesome. So, with a nod to my dad and in honor of nature, The Literacy Alliance worked with two organizations to create two Earth friendly videos. The Eugene Gregory Memorial Youth Academy students created a video based on the children’s book, Where Once There Was a Wood by Denise Fleming. The students from the Boys Town of Central Florida created a video under the direction of John Kennedy called Earth Day. Check them out and enjoy! Earth Day Song and Where Once There Was a Wood. Now go outside!!! My dad will be happy you did.