Helping

In our busyness as a society, we Americans have too often abdicated neighborliness, care, and simple helpfulness to the government. The politicians develop a program, create an entire bureacuracy to oversee the activities, and finally, assign a series of watchdog levels to monitor the bureacrats. The resulting "help" to the intended recipients falls woefully short of the good intentions of those who introduced the bill that started the government ball rolling. How can we make changes? We need to teach the next generation the joy of serving, helping out when the "volunteer" hours are not a graduation requirement or met with pay. What better way to start than with the curly blonde we know as our granddaughter.

When we arrived in Georgia, Grandpa wanted to wash his Jeep, so he showed her how to wash the sides and then rinse. Yes, the job took longer and we all came into the house soaking wet, but the laughter was brighter than even the silver Jeep. "Little Stuff" had helped Granpa adn loved every minute. Why do we stop doing this, I wondered? Somewhere during childhood, we must stop practicing service for fun. Do we resent the time involved in extra laundry? Want the job done in 15 minutes and know that we can accomplish it without the "help" of littler ones? Whatever it is, we have paid a high toll for the time we may have gained here and there. I found it ludicrous when a teacher friend had to arrange the freshmen volunteer hours for all the 9th graders in her homeroom. That's right. She found the activity, set up the times, and had to check back to see who showed up and who did not. For those for failed to appear, the teacher got to arrange another activity. Pleazzzzzze!

This afternoon, while Granpa and I are babysitting for five days, we went to a local park to see the ducks. While there, I saw one or two big pinecones near the place we parked the Jeep. I got the idea of making some autumn wreaths as a surprise for Brent and Becky's return. As Granpa and Little Stuff started off for a walk, Dave asked if I could use more pinecones if he found them. As soon as I smiled and said yes, Dave had an instant helper. Looking at this photo, I know I'm thankful for the opportunity to grandparent!