TheBanyanTree: From little things...

[peter macinnis]

I have shared a link on a couple of lists today, about the death of a 
lovely old man who cared. Here is the link: 
<http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/defying-all-statistics-he-saved-a-generation-of-aboriginal-youngsters-from-ruined-lives-20151204-glg0sn.html>

Anyhow, a friend in San Diego said she was getting old, and wanted to 
find a way to make a difference: did anybody have any ideas. Here's what 
I said in reply:

* * * * * *

Just do little things. We social democrats in Oz have a favourite song: 
'From Little Things, Big Things Grow'. You can hear it here, 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_ndC07C2qw>, though you will need to 
listen hard. It's the story of exploited Aborigines saying "we want our 
land back". They won.

Or there's a better version here: 
<http://fasterlouder.junkee.com/watch-paul-kelly-and-kev-carmodys-emotional-tribute-to-gough-whitlam/840705>

I was doing little things yesterday, walking on a harbour beach with a 
grand-niece who is eight. We were heading along to see where, later in 
the night, some Little Penguins would come ashore.

I picked up and showed Annie a piece of pumice that was lying on the 
sand. It came from an eruption off New Zealand, three years or so back. 
The pumice came ashore here in Australia two years back and the bits are 
still lying on the beaches, slowly getting smaller.

"This is a rock," I told her. "What do you think will happen if I throw 
it in the water?"

She looked at the pale rock in my hand. "It'll get darker?"

She had just done a little thing back on me, reminding me there's always 
more than one answer. "I think it might," I said. "We'll have to try it, 
but do you think the rock will sink?"

She nodded. I handed her the piece I was holding, she hefted it and 
looked thoughtful, then started picking up more pieces, and I did so as 
well.  We took them to the water's edge, threw them in and saw them 
bobbing on the surface.

She wanted to know where the pumice came from, so I told her they came 
from the Kermadec islands, and where those islands were, but the story 
the rocks tell is what really counts.  The rest is just background.

So I told her how two years back, I had been collecting and 
photographing pumice lumps with tiny sea animals hanging on: bryozoa (I 
called them corals), goose-neck barnacles and tube worms, mostly. I also 
told her mother later, in her hearing, to help her look up "pumice raft" 
on Wikipedia.

The mother is a very bright lawyer, and she asked if I had written the 
piece in question. No, I said, I may have done an edit though I didn't 
think I had. That was unscripted and unplanned, but Annie took it all 
in: she knows a bit more about how things like that come to be.

I anticipate future questions, and I look forward to them.

I remember the old people who shared little things with me when I was 
young. I know for a fact that a few of Annie's switches went from off to 
on last night.  And fused in that position.

 From little things, big things grow...

peter
subversive educator