Editor MNH: (9/22/05)
In the children story Heinrich von Eichenfeld by Christoph von Schmid, the baby Heinrich is abducted by robbers who take him to their cave where a hermit becomes his father and mother. One day, Heinrich, now a young boy, and the hermit escape. For the first time Heinrich sees the sun and wonders who can reach so high to fill the lamp with oil. He is distraught over the beautiful flowers when rain falls, having known only the paper flowers which the hermit had cut for him. They come to a brook. “Quickly put the stopper back in, the water will all run out” thinking of the water barrel in the cave.
Now from a story to real life. The time: 4 AM l992. We are driving North on a six lane highway from Dana Point, CA to Santa Barbara. The traffic flows nicely but it is incessant. Suddenly I am gripped by a horrible vision. I see an open faucet gushing oil. Unlike the water barrel in the cave there is no replenishment from the outside. A friend told me that the tire, car and oil companies had bought up the railroad running along the coastline and closed it down.
After the price of gasoline rose to $3 a gallon I had hoped that the Marshfield school board would see the “mene, mene, tekel …” on the wall and leave Washington school where it is, namely centrally located instead of building a new school on the periphery with not enough sidewalks for safe walking.
The members of the school board are still entrapped in the old mind set, which in the past stood for progress: tear down, consume and waste. It is good for business just like the closing of the coastal rail line in California. But what about the future?