Life Guard

Life Guard
October 21, 2007

This afternoon we met Emily at the pool. She was life-guarding us as we swam.

The YMCA East pool is really nice and clean, but it's a little limited compared to what I'm used to: no icebergs or seals. But Emily the life guard was great!

The idea of having a "life guard" while I was swimming was, I must admit, a new one. But I do like the concept. And one that, maybe, for the sake of me and my relatives, should be further looked into.

"What's up with the bear?" Emily asked us as we approached her life guard chair after doing our usual twenty minutes of laps.

"This is Bear Witness," Monona said.

"Yeah?" Emily inquired in a tone of voice inviting us to say more.

"He's bearing witness to what you and I are doing to reduce global warming, " Monona told her.

"What are you doing?" asked Emily.

We told her: "We drive a small car, we buy our vegetables from the farmers' market or from stores that buy from local farmers, we recycle, compost our vegetable scraps, and we live on the near East Side in a neighborhood where we can walk to most services: the grocery store, the thrift store, coffee shops, restaurants. We vote for environmental leaders. And we have a business that designs and installs rain gardens, green roofs and such."

"How about you?" Monona asked her.

"My car gets 38 miles to the gallon," Emily said. "And I live at home with my parents and they do a lot of things. We recycle, although I think we could save a lot of paper if we read the newspaper on line. We also buy mostly unprocessed food."

"Unprocessed?" Monona asked.

"Yes, like buying fresh, locally grown vegetables. It takes less energy," Emily said. Then she asked us, "Are you part of a group doing this?"

Monona explained that I had left the bear dance troupe to go out on my own, to travel around with her.

"How long have you been doing this?" Emily asked.

"Our first time out was a couple of weeks ago at the market cafe," Monona said.

"Do you have a web site?" Emily wanted to know.

Monona said, "Not yet, but we're glad you asked. Because we've been thinking about that."

Emily, who is a high school senior, then told us, "I think what you're doing is really cool!"

That was really nice to hear. "Really cool," she said.

Yup. I'm Polar Bear Witness and really cool. That's me.

Truly,
~P.B. Witness
P.S. Please share the bear! www.polarbearwitness.blogspot.com