Back again

Due to unforeseen and unsolvable (by me) technical difficulties I haven't been able to post any blogs for a while.  Today I want to write about a tour I helped lead at the Botanical Garden.  It was a warm sunny morning when I got to the Garden.  My Docent friends were gathering, chatting, catching up on what each had been doing while the 2nd graders from a Chinese School in Oakland arrived.  They were rambunctious as 8 year olds tend to be:  running around, getting their ya ya's out as my daughter in law calls it.  They settled down for the Introduction and soon the group was divided up.  Elisabeth and I had 4 girls, adorable in their uniforms of blue skirts and white blouses and extremely well behaved.  Soon it was clear the school hadn't prepared them with any prior studies of plants, but the girls were very curious. They peered at cactuses, wondering why some of the small ones were so old.  They loved looking at the Japanese Pond, walking joyfully through the tree fern forest, touching the fuzzy soft moss on redwood trees and smelling fragrant leaves from the herb garden.  After I pointed out that I was older than the Coast redwood tree we had just studied, the girls began chatting about their great-grandmothers.  One said, my great grandmother walked out of a war in Korea.  Another said her grandmother walked through a war in China.  A third had a relative that had been in the Viet Nam war.  I reflected how fortunate those of us who've lived our whole lives in the US are.  We have never experienced a war.  I looked at these bright young girls, bilingual in Chinese and English, and thought that they and their families bring us a deep sense of gratitude for our country and appreciation for the peace and prosperity and opportunities we have here.  In these days, when politics so drags me down, it is beautiful to see our country through different eyes.