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Labor Day was a relaxing day here under the Big Top. Our boys spent
the day fishing on the Delta with friends while the girls basically
relaxed the day away at home. Normally I am working because I consider
it to be kind of poetically perfect to be catching babies on Labor Day
but I had the day/night off. Instead, I had a chance to do a little
service to our community with Jodie, her dance coach and other members
of her dance team.

Jodie
got up at 4 in the morning to meet with her dance team and load up,
unroll and set up over a hundred American Flags that lined up and down
Center Street for the Flags Over Manteca project. I joined the group
twelve hours later to roll up each flag, gather them all and stack them
up for storage until the next scheduled display.

What fun it was! We shared laughs, waved to passing cars as they
honked and waved at us and later enjoyed a well-earned treat at Yogofina....LOVE Yogofina!

For Jodie and her two team mates, it was a lot of fun and there is
nothing wrong with that. It was also an opportunity for them to see
that serving their community can be a lot of fun. Definitely nothing
wrong with that!

I can't begin to share how much I appreciate all that Jodie's coach
and teacher, Harmony and her fiance, Paul, do to inspire Jodie and the
rest of the kids they work with.  Harmony and Paul are pretty much kids
themselves, just in their twenties yet they model the kind of positive
people any parent would be proud for their own children to become. They
both are hard-working people who have built together a successful
business. But they don't stop there. They volunteer their talents and
precious time with local charities and community groups that benefit
under-privileged young people in the area like the Boys and Girls Club and Give Every Child A Chance as well as regular participants in the Flags Over Manteca Project.
They are two young people who have chosen to give back and build up
their hometown in such a way that more young people will hopefully be
inspired to realize their own gifts, talents and dreams and hopefully
give back to those around them. In a modern society that has evolved
into a group of well-insulated individuals who can choose to have
little interaction with one another and who often refuse to take
responsibility for their community, their friends, their families,  and
their own selves, the influence of these two is commendable. I am so
grateful for their influence and inspiration. It models and supports
what Bill and I try to teach all of our children. How fortunate we are
to have them touch our lives the way that they do!

We all need to be inspired more like this. Our children need to be inspired more like this.

I just finished reading the text of President Obama's Back to School Remarks directed to the school children of our nation.
Of course much has been discussed, torn apart, dissected and predicted
about this planned address. Even before the text was released to the
over wrought public, I felt that most of us were expending so much
useless energy over something pretty benign. Although our children did
not have the opportunity to choose Mr. Obama as their President (and
yes, he is their President too), why shouldn't they enjoy the
opportunity to hear him speak directly to them? Reading through the
text a reasonably intelligent person can determine that this isn't an
evil Pied Piper ready to beguile and lead our children to a path of
their own destruction. Far from it. This is a public figure challenging
and encouraging school children to work hard, accept their own
responsibility to do the best that they can in school. Would we object
if someone like Tiger Woods or Eli Manning or Beyonce addressed the
American young people in the same way? Would we wring our hands over
the thought that they were being brainwashed? I doubt it.

The way I see it is there can't be too many heroes in our children's
lives and there can't be too many times where our children and we are
challenged to do our very best and to take responsibility for
ourselves, our community, our nation, our planet.

Mr. Obama is not the acceptable hero for your child in your opinion?
Fine. Instead of regarding this as something to fear and to shield your
child from look at it as a teachable moment. READ the speech. Go over
it with your child and discuss it with them. Share your point of view,
your beliefs and your values about your child's education. Take this
opportunity to continue to teach and inspire your child to be an
informed individual who can study the issues and make their own
logical, moral choices.

More Adventures in Juggling can be found at http://adventuresinjuggling.wordpress.com