`Earth Day was every Saturday Growing up in Columbus with a father on the Biology faculty, Maurice Giltz, I thought every Saturday was the best day every week. My daddy would get us up early and we’d have breakfast. Sometimes at home he’d make the worlds best ever soft boiled eggs with toast. But there were also the Saturday’s, probably when the weather was good in the spring or summer, that we’d take breakfast and eat by the pond or in the car. We’d have those little boxed Kellogg cereals in the little boxes with the perforations on the back and the cereal was in waxed paper and you’d pour the milk on the cereal and eat it
RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX. I put that in all caps because that’s just how big a treat it was.
Until I was in K we would go out on these Saturday morning field trips. Mainly to the farm at Ohio State which now has the west campus on it. There was on the farm a pond. The frog pond. Little did I know my daddy was studying both the frogs and the cattails. I just thought it was our time. He called them Snoopers’Hunts. I so enjoyed them.
Long before it had a pedagogical name, Inquiry Method of teaching, my daddy taught me by asking questions. He said if you can frame a good question you can usually find an answer. Or do research and use the Scientific Method to test your guesses. This is before I was 5.
He taught me to observe the world and then put together all you knew that made it like hypothesis about what I had seen. For example, There was a row of trees that all bent to the one side. He told me that i can look up the name of the tree but could I figure out why they would all be bent like that. For weeks we’d observe them and I would make guesses and he’d help me think about it and I would see why or why not that was right. I taught our kids like this too.
Anyway every Saturday was an Earth day. It was because we’d be out, no matter the weather, and we would try and learn something new.
The level of the pond varied according to rain and the season. One year there was a good size rock, about the size of a football, but heavy. Every Saturday for about 6 weeks when we went to the pond I’d try and lift up that rock. Each Saturday at breakfast I’d eat more to see if I could get stronger and lift the rock. He once told me I ate 4 soft boiled eggs one morning sure that it would make me strong enough for rock lifting. Finally, at some point, I went around the pond and found my rock and reached down and picked it up. Daddy! I did it. Then I put it down and started crying. He came over where I was and was trying to figure out what in the world could be wrong. I’d just accomplished my goal. And that Was the problem. I said, Daddy, what’s next. I’ve done everything I always thought I needed to do. I picked up the rock. What do I do now.
Friends we will contemplate this in our next installment.
God abide, stay safe and healthy.
Love
Bobbie
Ps. What are you doing next Saturday morning?
The Spirit Will Tell You 