By LAURA LEITNER

I have four sons who are thoroughly enjoying PEEC’s new hiking program “Passport to the Pajarito Plateau”. They have always loved nature and being in the outdoors, and they are very excited about the new program. They are so excited about it that we are making time to do some fun hikes when we might not otherwise have squeezed it into our busy schedule.

We were, in fact, planning to do the Acid Canyon hike the day after I read about that particular post being removed. I told my boys that someone had stolen it. My oldest son laughed at how ridiculous that was and said, “Who would do that? That’s so stupid.”

Indeed. Who would do that? That fascinates me. What can your motivation possibly be? l’d love to hear it. You can’t be gaining monetarily from removing a hiking post. Do you enjoy sitting at home snickering to yourself that you have spoiled the fun for small children? That is pretty pathetic if that is the case.

Do you feel it is a blight on nature to have a post standing by a trail? It would be hard to understand that one since almost all hiking trails have posts or markers of some sort. One thing is certainly clear— you have more time on your hands than most of us do.

It is an interesting reflection on your character that you choose to use that spare time to steal hiking posts. I can think of many other ways you could occupy your time that would be a benefit to the community and might actually make you feel good about yourself. For instance, the schools are always looking for volunteers to listen to children read or to help them in math classes and with fund raisers. You could pick up trash at parks, volunteer to weed community gardens or help sick or injured people get their shopping done.

There are some really busy families around town that would love someone to come and help them with their laundry. Animal shelters often need people with extra time on their hands to help care for stray dogs and cats. You could even amuse yourself by putting shopping carts back where they belong at Smith’s so they don’t roll into cars when the wind gets bad.

PEEC uses volunteers, too, but it usually isn’t for stealing their hiking posts. If you need more ideas just ask around town. I can’t be the only one who can think of better ways to spend your time.