Yesterday, the two visiting fifteen year old boys were digging in the compost pile for worms. They wanted to fish in the pond. Peter, the dad, had been down to the barn with them to find the fishing equipment. They had oiled the reels and checked out the gear. They were ready to go. They had no luck with the live worms but there were purple plastic worms to be used. From the upstairs window I watched these two almost-men out in the pond on the boat casting their lines.
This was a weekend when we had sixteen guests, all with different agendas. Peter and Anne and the boys were in the guest house. Our daughter and her toddler son, Quincy were here in the main house with Tory, also fifteen, and her grandmother, June. The others came only for the day on Sunday.
I see these very different people modeling behavior for their children. Anne and Peter patiently show their kids what to do and how to do it. June shows Tory by example how to be a grown-up.
Anne's and Peter's kids have been in our life since they were very small. The oldest is now in college. They are all interested in the natural world and love our place. The whole family gets out to help clean up our woodland trails, brings wheelbarrows full of mulch and cow pies to the asparagus bed, and Peter loves to help in the ever needing mowing of the pastures.
This weekend the boys were determined to catch a fish. When I went out this morning to empty the compost, I saw that there was Big Activity at the guest house. Peter was taking photos of the large mouth bass the boys caught. He was gently directing them in a plan for where and how to clean and fillet the fish that they would eat for breakfast.
Later, as we were taking the latest batch of guests on a truck ride around the property, I saw one of the boys working on a fish with his knife. They had caught another one! This one was to be taken home to Mom (nicely filleted). Both of them had learned how to persevere, how to deal with a live fish, just caught. No doubt, they learned how to cook it too!
These parents have taken their kids everywhere with them as they pursue their scientific lives. They patiently teach and explain and model an ethical, joyous, and responsible life. They teach their kids how to do stuff! I see the magnificence of the transmission of culture from one generation to another. This family has had more than its share of trouble. Anne lost one arm and a lung to cancer. Yet they are so whole! This is a family that teaches their kids to fish.
June, Tory's grandmother, is also teaching her granddaughter to fish. Tory, a lovely fifteen year old black girl, has dreadlocks like her grandmother. She is here in Florida (from Maryland) to explore the possibility of living here and going to school. She has been home schooled this year because of really bad bullying problems at her high school. Tory is smart, academically at the top and needing a change. My daughter loves Tory's mom and suggested that Tory might come down to Florida for a change in her educational life and live with her. So Tory is thinking about this. June came down for a few days to check everything out. She left Florida this morning.
I watched June and Tory as they were here on the ranch. It must have been as strange to them as being in Afghanistan. Here they were in WASP land, pretty prosperous, everything different from their lives back home. We had a dinner with all the current guests . June was lovely with me and with Tory. I could see she was taking everything in. June and Tory spent a morning in my studio making clay art. June knows that Tory is contemplating making a tremendous leap into the unknown. She wants Tory to know she has her support. Here was another model of one generation to another. In some ways, this model is more scary and iffy, because, unlike that of Peter and Anne, there is no comfortable underpinning.
Seeing these incredible people with their progeny and how they patiently and wisely transmit their best values, humbles me and makes me hopeful.
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