My Little Tree Hugger

When I was about 13, my parents took me to an Earth Day fair at Grant Park. I'm still not sure why they took me there - maybe they got mixed up and thought that it was some other fair that they actually wanted to be at or maybe we were already downtown for some reason and they just decided to walk over to see what was gong on or maybe they were just bored that day and decided to head downtown in hopes of finding something to do. Either way, there we were wandering from stand to stand and listening to everyone talk about how important it was to save the planet. It was something that I had never really thought about and it made my young and impressionable mind reel. I got a "Save Endangered Animals" t-shirt and I tried my first vegetarian hot dog that day and I was transformed!! I suddenly had a purpose in my life - I was going to SAVE THE PLANET!!!

After that day I constantly preached about the evils of aerosol cans and styrofoam and about the CFC's that were destroying the ozone and how fur was murder. I raged when I would see aluminum cans in the garbage can instead of in a separate recycling bag. I begged my parents to only buy recycled anything - toilet paper, napkins you name it and I asked for it!! I also tried to get them to be better at recycling in general (which was near impossible in the early 90's)!! At first they tried to do some of the things that I was asking but after a few weeks they just ignored me. I think they thought that I would lose interest in the planet but I held strong - at least for a while.

By the middle of high school I had pretty much stopped the constant lecturing and begging. I still didn't use aerosol cans or styrofoam and I recycled when I could, I still believed that wearing fur was wrong (and nearly "killed" my mother when she heard that I turned down the fur coat that my grandma offered to me because of my "beliefs") but I had lost the urge to push everyone else to change. Now that I am older, I still believe in all of those things and I try to live as "cleanly" as possible but I am a far cry from what I was all those years ago. I hadn't thought of any of these things in a really long time but Hannah has brought all of these memories rushing back.

Back in April Hannah celebrated Earth Day in school with her class. they talked about recycling and wasting water and littering. She came home full of questions and looking for answers. Since I was the only adult home at the time, I had to explain why wasting water was bad and how garbage can hurt the earth and loads of other things. When we were done talking about everthing she ran off to play and I thought that I had probably confused the poor girl or that it was in one ear and out the other like normal. Boy was I wrong. Hannah remembered everything that I told her. When we were brushing her teeth while getting ready for bed that night I had left the water on and she turned it off and scolded me for leaving it running. When we were outside a few days later she reminded me to throw away our garbage instead of throwing it on the ground and "hurting the earth".

Since then her love of the earth had grown by leaps and bounds. She has asked me if leaving her toys in the back yard will hurt the planet like garbage does and she is doing a better job of putting things away now for fear of it. She is constantly reminding all of us to turn off the water if we are not using it so that we are not "wasting it". She has even started picking up random garbage that she sees while we are out (and we've had to put a stop to it) and is getting upset that people are littering.

I am glad that she has taken an interest in cleaning up the planet. It is nice to see that she takes this very seriously and it shows me that she is paying attention to what is going on around her. I know that she is still young and as time goes on there will be other things that interest her but I hope that she hangs on to this one - but I hope that she isn't comsumed with it like I was. I don't think I could handle a "Melissa Jr." harassing me every five seconds. I don't know how may parents did it because thinking back on it now I'm sure I wold have smacked myself!!