As we all go forward with more of a thirst for financial reassurance, we see the importance of teaching our children the value of a dollar as well as the risk and importance of stoking the furnace here, because it keeps a fire burning everywhere else. Still, in regards to the bailout/rescue, the knee jerk reaction on ubiquitous Main Street was to punish the rich and have a people’s uprising. Then 700 points of reality dropped on our kitchen tables right between the gas bill and the new car brochures. I wonder if people are talking to kids about this.
I think that in Shorewood, if we want to talk with our students about the whole economic mess we can take advantage of what I see as a wonderfully serendipitous art installation on the lower playground of Lake Bluff School. While it may just look like a huge pile of dirt, it is the powerful half of an artistic, organic art installation. It and the hole it came from should be shipped up to Kohler Art Center and be put on display next to the Rhinestone Cowboy's house.
Let’s say we change the name of “Capitol Drive” to “Ball Street” at least in front of the gentrifiable high school. We must understand that if they do well, we all do well. They get additions, we get free dirt. That’s how things work. We ought to be excited about the truck dumps of dirt because they make our lives better. With it, we can fill the dips and holes that have made America’s game a bit like little league rice-paddy-ball after a downpour, and you have to appreciate the metaphorical value of the orange plastic fence corralling the dirt, thwarting any plans it may have to sneak back to the whole it once filled just a few blocks away.
I think we all learned a little lesson this past couple weeks. We don’t know much about the food chain that is our economy. We need to do better with our kids at home and in our classrooms. So teachers and parents, take your kids over and show them the hole where the new and costly stadium will be. Stop at the site and thank the ground that has been broken for the good of our village and its taxpayers. Imagine how home values will soar when people get a look of that! Talk about investment, gains and losses. Then go back to the fence and stand at attention as you consider all the things we can use leftover dirt for. Revel in the power of money. Teach its value, talk about priorities, necessities, need vs. want, show vs. substance and how to say the word no once in awhile. Then tell them that if they want to play on the dirt, they will have to pay for it.
