Night and the strike-anywhere match

Years ago I taught Environmental Education to school groups in New Hampshire via Boston University's Human Environment Institute (aka "Sargent Camp).

One of the activities we did was to take the kids out to star-gaze.  We also led them on night hikes through the woods.  When we got to a nice, dark place with their eyes all adjusted to the absence of light but just before we led them back to their cabins, we would reach into our "bag of tricks" and say that just before we go in, there's one more thing here for you to see... the brightest match in the world! (strike)  "WOWWWW!"  It is so much fun to awe someone with something so simple.

I loved having a "bag of tricks."  It was, literally, a bag, that had blindfolds or crayons, or rocks and matches... depending on the need.

Relating this story reminds me of two more things.  When we started that night walk, we gave each of the kids a rock to hold onto, a worry stone, and amulet for courage. At the end of the walk we put the rocks on the ground and had the kids figure out which rock they had been holding.

The other thing that I want to tell you is about the night one of the guys I worked with came up to the farmhouse and told us that he saw a skunk in an old well hole and had wanted to rescue it before it rained.  So he and some of the other instructors went back down to the camp to try to get the skunk.  These were kids from Harvard and the University of Vermont and some other schools.  Collectively they could not grab or coax the poor skunk from the hole and returned defeated.

Well, it was my turn.  I went by myself to the hole and looked at the frightened skunk and looked at the hole.  The hole was four or five feet deep and about for feet across.  Then I looked around across the ground and even though it was night, I spied a long board that we used in one of our initiative games and wedged it into the hole so the skunk could climb out on it.  Then I left.

I rained like crazy during the night.  In the morning, the hole was full of water and the skunk was gone.

And I just couldn't believe I was smarter than two Harvard grads, two UV grads and some surfer-dude from California combined.

Maybe it's just old-fashioned common sense. No tuition for that.