By LYNN HANRAHAN
Los Alamos
Feb. 2 was Candlemas. It’s halfway between the Solstice and the Equinox. Thoughts turn to Spring. Growing up in the Midwest in the seventies it was known as the Blessing of the Throats. After morning mass the priest would bless all of our throats with candles to help us survive what remained of winter. It was kind of creepy but so were lots of things.
Our sports uniforms were scary. We wore the same reversible orange and black tops for all three of the Catholic girls league sports. They were stored in the parish hall basement between seasons and smelled like it. They had weird little holes like something had chewed on them. My sister thought she had worn the same tops eight years earlier. We got new tops in eighth grade. The nuns took our picture.
I thought back fondly on those stinky old tops this week. With the weather feeling springlike, it felt like a good time to finish up winter’s chores so I was returning a lamp upstairs which had been moved over the holidays. I tried to wedge it in between a bed and a little cedar chest but couldn’t figure out why the little chest weighed a ton. Turned out it was full of outgrown sports stuff from a kid who will soon graduate college.
Since I was upstairs anyway I just kept cleaning and a few days later there still is at least a good week or so of work left. All the kids are grown and living far away so noone really minds. What was rather astonishing, though, was despite all the stuff I had donated or rehomed the past couple of decades from local youth sports, there remained probably a thousand odd items — dozens of soccer uniform pieces, T-shirts from sport camps, hoodies from every event imaginable, hockey socks, shin guards, and the list goes on. Perhaps 10 or 15 percent if these items were anywhere near worn out.
Not that we want the local kids to show up at events far and wide looking like they just stepped out of a Dickens novel but there has to be a better way. I questioned the need for one more hoody or set of uniforms through the years but the social pressure in town not to be a crabby parent is enormous. I asked my husband what he thought we must have paid for all this through the years. He rolled his eyes.
Councilor Reagor questioned this week those on local boards who he believed to be tiresome climate alarmists. I can only question why we are not doing far more to save our planet? My family is an example of the excesses of our affluence. With today’s million dollar mortgages who really wants to buy all this stuff?
As winter turns to spring the climate is front and center on my mind. Gardening is a gamble with soaring temperatures and drought. I am comforted to know there are people volunteering for local boards who feel the time to act is now.
