Happy Earth Day! Do you feel like you're a Lorax or a Onceler today? Is earth day for kids, or for all of us? Are you doing anything to celebrate? I bet the Oak Park Elementary students are planting seedlings in their recycled milk cartons today. My work in the media lab today unfortunately won't be so tactile and wholesome.
(my fifth grade class about to plant flowers downtown on Earth Day)
When I was in elementary school I would dress up like a Swomee Swan and put on the Lorax in front of kid painted truffula forest backdrops. My costume was a pretty standard yellow and blue felt bird costume. My favorite costumes, or the costumes I thought were the funniest, were the truffula tree costumes; because you can't chop down a painted tree, some kids dressed up in striped pajamas with tutu's on their heads so that the oncelers could chop them down. The painted sheets were hung in my best friend's back yard and about twenty of us kids participated in the production, under the direction of Liza's mom. It was a great event. We'd spend weeks practicing and in the end we'd get to skip a whole day of school. Early in the morning on the day of the performance we'd be out in the crisp air applying Dr. Seuss theatrical make up. (Can you imagine what a bunch of ten-year-olds trying to turn each other into Dr. Seuss characters will do to each other?) Once everything was ready, we'd sneak up to the top of the hill and spy on the street, to see if the first classes were walking over from the elementary school. There were always many fun false alarms.
What a great childhood experience! I can't wait to live in a neighborhood where I can round up the kids and reignite the tradition.
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