April 25, 2009

Earthday is here in Ashland. My 6-year-old wants to be in the earthday Trashion Show at scienceworks on Saturday. The good part: he’s using discarded items to make a costume to help show one of the many ways we can save mama earthball (as he refers to her majesty, Gaia, mother of us all). The better part: He’s making a costume of a bloodthirsty Spartan warrior. If all goes well, he’ll have a helmet with a crest, a spear and a shield. Too young to see the film “300” or even read the comic book it was based on, the boy has latched on the cool outfit and stories I and his grandfather have been telling him. Like the little Spartan boy who had a fox hidden under his shirt and wouldn’t admit he had it or show any discomfort when questioned by his elders, even as the fox clawed and bit at the boy's belly. Real story. Look it up. “And that was just spartan kid, Dad!” boy said to me. “Spartan teenagers were even tougher!” My pop told me the same story when I was 6. I’m curious to see if anyone at earthday will appreciate the truthiness behind a little boy clothing himself in destruction and violence in the name of a better, greener world. It’s not such a stretch, really. Spartan mothers and wives encouraged conservation of resources. They’d tell their lads before a big fight: “Come home with your shield – or on it. Whatever you do, don’t just leave it lying around on the battlefield. That would be littering.”