Reflections on the Fifth Week of Spring – Celebrating Earth Day 

    Thursday, I settled in my Adirondack chair, watched the breeze toss new leaves on the River Willows below the blueberry patch, then googled “March for Science Pennsylvania locations.” One of the fourteen listed was Diamond Park in Meadville. I whooped. Perhaps the idea that had been incubating in the back of my mind since I’d listened to a Science Friday podcast last February, would be a new way of celebrating Earth Day. I started an email chain with Spence and Ellen, our daughter, world traveler, and epidemiologist.

    JW: I found a March for Science in Meadville. The website says 30 are going and 55 are interested but they don't have a permit yet. I'm contemplating celebrating Earth Day at the march. Are you going to a March for Science, Ellen?

    Ellen: You know the march is tomorrow. They have one locally; I am thinking about going.

    Spence: My sign will read "Our daughter is a scientist, but we like her anyway."

    JW: Nope. "My daughter is a scientist. She rocks!"

    Ellen: Not the most effective campaign slogan.

    Earth Day morning dawned cloudy and cold. On the way to the park, we passed volunteers planting shade trees on South Main Street. A lone woman, holding a sign with a picture of Rachel Carson, stood at the southeast corner of the park.

    “Not much of a turn out,” I murmured.

    “We’ll drive around and see,” Spence said. He cruised toward the court house, and a line of about thirty marchers appeared–Allegheny college students, families with elementary school aged children, an infant in a baby carrier, old people like us, and two dogs. My size crowd.

    Spence parked. Without homemade signs, we joined the end of the line. An older man and women stooped to pick up litter while the group wound around the three block long and half a block wide perimeter. A woman in a red windbreaker and sunglasses said, “What will they say with Earth Day people tramping on the grass instead of the sidewalks?” She and her friends left the line and took the sidewalk leading to the gazebo in the middle of the park.

    Since we’d joined the demonstration forty-five minutes into the three hour event, we only circled the park twice before people broke into clusters for conversation among the leafing out trees.

    A cute kindergärtner with his hands in his gray hoodie pockets stood idly by his mom and older sister. Recognizing the children from the Learning Center where I volunteer on Thursday mornings, I approached them. “Are you Marching for Science?”

    The boy frowned. “Not any more. I’m ready to play.” He dashed across the grass and climbed a boulder two-thirds his height.

    A young woman wearing a bright pink T-shirt sporting a feminist fist held the leash of a brown and black dog she called her unruly toddler. While the dog tugged her arm, she talked to an aging hippie with a boom box before selecting a donut from the organizer’s table. The dog jumped up on her in an attempt to grab the donut.

    The other dog, a seeing-eye dog on duty, ignored the donuts and sat quietly by his master.

    I bought a March for Science Meadville, PA button then walked about taking photos of signs.

    I’m a Voting Citizen 4 Science

    Science Rocks

    I’m Marching for Her (with an arrow pointing from “Her” to a picture of the Earth)

    Science is Knowledge is Power

    Meadville Stands with Science and Scientists

    March for Science

    The kindergärtner's sister held a cardboard sign against her leg and flipped her long, thick braid over her shoulder. The braid flipping was familiar to me after many sessions of reading together at the Learning Center. I asked if she’d let me take a picture of her with the sign.

    She put her finger to her chin, shook her head, and ran to join her brother on the rock he’d climbed.

    Then a tall young man with a goatee walked up to Spence and me and began talking about his C-corp endeavors to provide solar cells for people who couldn’t afford the systems.

    Spence nudged my elbow. “Are you going to tell him?”

    The man looked back and forth between Spence to me.

    I said, “We’re in the midst of negotiating with a company to install solar cells on our house.”

    “That’s great. We encourage people to install their own cells if they can.” He handed me a business card. “Pass this along to friends who can donate to the cause or who need our help.”

    His partner, barefoot despite the forty degree temperatures, jiggled the baby in the carrier strapped to her front and said, “It’s for his future.”

    After forty-five minutes chilling and milling, I turned to Spence. “We can go home now.”

    Later, with hands in hot, soapy dish water after dinner, I looked out the window at Spence driving his red tractor. He scooped a bucketful of compost from one pile, dumped it on another, and exposed rich black earth that had formed inside. Though he wouldn’t consider it a celebration, just another Wells Wood task, he’d created fresh earth for Earth Day.

    The tractor engine rumbled, and I ruminated on the discussion from the afternoon All Things Considered broadcast  about the significance of the March for Science.

    A nine year old participant in DC sounded hopeful. “. . . some people who do not believe in it [science] . . . will . . .see how important it really is.”

    But commentators questioned the efficacy of the march because, despite organizers’ intentions for a nonpartisan event, signs such as the “I’m Marching for Her,” a variation of Hillary Clinton campaign slogan, “winked” at politics.

    I chose to ignore the politics and concentrate on my success. After years of planting trees, picking up litter, and teaching elementary students the three Rs, reduce, reuse, recycle, I’d found a different way to celebrate Earth Day. I also supported Ellen, whose research focuses on keeping people safe from heavy metals in the environment.

    This morning I sent her a text.
    JW: Did you go to a March for Science?

    Ellen: No . . . But I support it! I am not a big fan of crowds.

    She wouldn’t have had to contend with a crowd if she’d lived closer to us.