Education and positive change are difficult and incremental at best. That is why our society pays so much lip service to the ideal, but defunds the process whenever it thinks people aren't paying attention to it - which seems to be most of the time.
However, education and evolution does happen. Ran into a fairly rough neighborhood kid who is now a cop at the peace rally last February. My group was trying to get over to the UN and his job was to keep us away from it. As he moved us along third avenue, he said, " I remember you, mister, from the garden on 48th Street. I was peeing through the fence, like I always did on the way home from school, and you and a bunch of grow-ups told me it might kill one of the plants and asked me how I would feel if I was peed on. And at the time, you guys were so big (the cop now towers over me by a good foot) I half believed that you were going to pee on me! Funny, it made me think about what I was doing, consequences of actions, stuff..." Incremental change and education - it does happen. Adam Honigman << Subj: [cg] fences and good neighbors Date: 5/23/03 9:09:18 AM Eastern Daylight Time From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (a.h.steely) Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] All the tales from the zucchini police were enlightening. Saddest of all was the one from Fairbanks, about how the drug dealers and their children don't need to listen to ranting gardeners about stolen cabbages... The last frontier is polluted with our general lack of courtesy. For my lawn, breaking down and buying a chain link fence is now a necessity. We are in a relatively middle-class city neighborhood but the kids cut across the lawn, through flowers, not around the walk. I don't want to discontinue the school bus stop which has been in the same place for 20 years, since my boyfriend's kids attended school over a decade ago, because my car is full of posters in the back window and bumper stickers for thought. How else can we reach the drug dealers kids? My car in the driveway is the most political thing they know. SAD state of affairs but nothing new, my late father-in-law had the problem in the 1950's across from Camden H.S. in New Jersey. His fence was only 4 ft. so after his death in 1961 the kids took to jumping the fence to destroy the organic fruit trees. Maybe some of the former students remember that garden and are part of the people in Camden trying to do a community garden. Helen Steely Hbg., Pa. >> ______________________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden
