Meet The Green Girls.
They’re posing by their recycling bins at the Midland Downtown Farmers’ Market, and they’re amazing. In a town where recycling is , to most people, pretty much one of those Communist Pinko Notions, and being “green” means you dress up for drinking beer on St. Patrick’s Day, they’re trying to get the other kids at their elementary school involved in recycling and things like sustainable living. They have a challenge, trying to educate the other kids, but they’ve got support from the adults in their lives. Halima’s mom, Teffany, is Farmer Matt’s Lady Love. And this is one amazing girl~~
{I write here only about Halima, since I know her mother and she knows about the project. I didn’t meet her friend’s mother.]
You know I’m not a Kid Person, so I’m always astounded when a child surprises me. When Teffany, who’s fabulous (but didn’t want her photo taken, which is too bad for us because she’s gorgeous and would have been perfect for this, being a writer. Plus fabulous dreds!) introduced me to her daughter, Halima shook my hand and said, “It’s nice to meet you,” and then turned to her friend and said, “Ricë, I’d like you to meet my friend, R.”
I’m sure my mouth dropped open. Because, you know? How many of us adults are reallyreally comfortable doing introductions? I’m not: I have enough trouble remembering ONE person’s name, let alone remembering TWO people’s names at the same time. you know? Yiiiii. And then there’s that whole thing we had drummed into us Back in the Day, about who gets introduced to whom, or, rather, Who is Presented to Whom. You present youth to age, men to women, Poor to Rich, and then it just continues to get even weirder than that. I think the rule puts clergy right up there next to The Queen. If you’re like me and don’t really buy into the whole Class Thang, well~~ it can get pretty dicey. Like if you have a young impoverished Duke of some obscure country and a self-made millionaire beauty queen, do you then have to ask for their birth certificates to determine respective ages? So every time I’ve actually remembered both people’s names, a HUGE feat in itself, I’ve then been paralyzed trying to figure out Relative Worth. Like I’m announcing who’s more important by whom I mention first. How it works out is that I really only ever introduce people to The Ever-Gorgeous Earl, since I’m pretty much thereby assured of remembering the name of at least ONE party. And since, you know, in my world, he’s It, I just present people to him. Works for me, although it might baffle Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth II.
Anyway. Halima doesn’t have this problem. She has the social skills, along with a very nice brain and some terrific adults in her life, to do pretty much whatever she wants. Exciting to think about the possibilities, isn’t it?
Go, Green Girls!
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7 comments:
It's always wonderful when you meet children who make you forget for a few minutes why you don't like children as a rule. The whole thing about babies being allergic to clean shirts thing...you know when their loving mothers foist them off on you and the first thing they do is puke all over your nice clean shirt and you walk around smelling like baby barf because you can't get home to change and no matter how many times you wash it, it still smells like barf? I tell people that I only like three kids in the world--my nephew and two others that may vary from day to day.
Lately, I've begun to believe that it isn't really the child that I don't like, it is the parents who should have been neutered at birth. They raise unmannered, impolite, little greedy guts who think that they are entitled and should not have to work for any thing in life and then turn them loose on society. Off the soap box now and on to better things...
Amazon has decided to mail your book to me way earlier than they originally said as in it has shipped today! Who's a happy girl????
I hear so much filth from some of these kids when using public transportation. And see so many who have awful manners: many times seniors are giving up seats for each others and the children fail to follow instrctions from adults.
And then there are the "rolling eye babies" who kick you...Pray tell, how was there innocence taken away; infants with "attitudes" and designer shoes gives me the willies...it's refreshing to see young children with positive attitudes and manners.
I'm most definitely not a kid person either, but I agree with Dora... I never fail to be delighted, nay, ecstatic, when I meet a Neat Kid who surpasses my expectations of kid-dom. I'll give neat kids their due, their pound of flesh, and every ounce of support and encouragement I can, because I think THEY are the future of America. I shudder with the phrase, "Future of America", every time I see a kid with his pants at half mast, and his checkered shorts waving at me eight inches above his ass. And, it's not just the men-children... it's also the junior bitches in their leave-nothing-to-the-imagination slut suits make me want to run up and choke them too. I didn't pay my dues on the Womens' Lib Front Lines to make young girls of the next generation think that Womens' Lib doesn't mean it's okay to let it all hang out. I'll give a few men credit for not being ruled by their gonads, but, face it, most are, and young girls just don't know this, and aren't prepared for the justifiable lust they arouse in guys. Guys are guys, and when your nuts rule your actions, shit happens.
But, I digress... your story of Halima, and her friend, and her efforts to instill the importance of recycling and sustainability to her young friends fills me with hope and kicks my crummudgenly ass into a higher gear of tolerance with kids.
Hope springs eternal!
out on a limb here: it's the fault of the adults. who created, for example, the simpsons? an adult. who benifits from it? an adult. raise your kids well and CARE about them, and most times they will be OK. there are always exceptions. my this year class of hooligans are the nicest i've ever had. who'd believe a kid in alternative ed would bring in a prom dress to loan to another kid?
go green girls! keep up the good work.
velma, i agree completely. some people are great parents. some suck at it. too bad they don't take the time before they reproduce to really understand what it entails.
you're absolutely right. (i didn't mean to slam the simpsons since i saw the original in the theatre with an adult audience, but that's just the point: it's not appropriate or good for kids!) i get so sick of adults acting like nasty teenagers, when so many teenagers are trying to grow up with those adults as their models. soap box time: sarcasm kills communication.
Maybe kids would be nicer if we were all just a little kinder and more understanding toward them and believed in their potential while loving them for who they are in the moment...treating them the way we wish we had been treated as children? Just a sympathetic thought from a loving parent of three-year-old twin boys...
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