APRIL 13, 2023 – Yesterday afternoon after I brought Illiana home from school, she grabbed her scooter, donned her helmet and celebrated freedom by zooming full-tilt down the sidewalk. Inspired by her carefree spirit, I followed, luxuriating in the hot zephyr as it overwhelmed the last vestiges of winter.
She was headed for the playground two blocks distant, and as she grew smaller in the widening gap between us, I called out, “Wait, Illiana!” but to no avail. I then realized I was witnessing an interactive metaphor for an inexorable feature of the human condition: the (grand)child, initially close to her elders, will eventually grow up and fly free.
Soon she landed at the playground and had the place to herself. I took to a nearby bench to savor the delight of watching Illiana at play. Another person, a gentleman out walking his dog, also happened to be on hand, and to break the ice after a long winter of social hibernation, we exchanged matched reactions to the unusually hot weather.
Earlier this week I’d accompanied “Scooter Kid” to a nearby school playground crowded with kids but all strangers to Illiana. She expressed a desire to meet people, and I offered hints on how to strike up a conversation, which suggestions she applied with confidence, albeit with limited success. (She wasn’t discouraged however. I told her that meeting people in such circumstances is bit like fishing. Sometimes you get a bite on the first cast. Other times, the fish, even in schools, just aren’t going for the bait.)
Here now, without thinking about it, I was demonstrating for Illiana how to fish—and as luck would have it, successfully.
The gentleman turned out to be another Eric, no less, but with the German, not Swedish surname, Schenck. He’s the Executive Director of the Minnesota Forest Resources Council, created under the 1995 Sustainable Forest Resources Act. Originally from Illinois (where he grew up on his family’s farm), his education and vocational background make him ideally suited for his job and mission. Smart, well-educated, articulate and both an expansive and analytical thinker, Eric is as much a teacher, apostle, emissary and perpetual learner as he is the enthusiastic, hands-on director of a crucial but unsung governmental agency on the vanguard of civilization’s most pressing mission: saving itself . . . from itself.
Though I’m nearly the tree-hugger that my late arborist-father was—he being unrivaled in that regard—I was appalled by my ignorance of the Council’s existence, let alone its remarkable work. And there by a chance encounter linked to Illiana’s free spirit on a late, hot afternoon, a window was revealed, then flung wide open. A view colored with promise came into focus as Eric described the background to the Council and a sampling of its goals and initiatives. (https://mn.gov/frc/)*. I heard a message of hope and encouragement: the very civilization that has put itself in environmental jeopardy also possesses the innovative capacity to adjust and adapt—provided, of course, that society develops and deploys the will to . . . save itself.
Illiana, meanwhile, again took to her scooter and flew up and down the sidewalk leading around the park. She exercised great patience with me, though by experience, she knows full well my weakness for stopping to visit with people when we’re out in the neighborhood.
But this time as we proceeded home, I supplemented my apology and praise of her patience by mentioning the substance of my conversation. “We were talking about the most important thing on earth,” I said.
“What’s that, Grandpa?” she asked.
“The earth itself.”
Against the backdrop of a constant cascade of unsettling “breaking news,” hope and encouragement are as real and close to home as in a chance conversation with a man with a dog in the park.
*If you’re a Minnesota resident, write to your state representative and senator in support of appropriation bills (HF 2310/SF 2438) for environment and natural resources that include increases for the Minnesota Forest Resources Council to invest more in science-based studies to adapt to climate change. The new proposed levels for the Council’s budget are $906k in FY24 and $926k in FY25.
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
