Group Kindness Paper Chain...Good to create or ponder and fine tune

 A caring hundred of so folk have made a real paper chain of hearts with their own first name and a way to be kind. Back in the 1980s at Vassar, I created a Community Valentine Board, for people to post anonymously or otherwise ideas about love, friendship and people in their hearts.

That was part of a weekend of Vassar Voices which sought to create campus wide conversations in various venues such as dorms, posters and a concert with all of the singing groups (a first, that the choir director told me required someone willing to envision and organize that as one who was willing to take the bull by the horns...Well, I am a Taurus so maybe that felt like wrangling with my kind.
 

For the record, I once had a melt down  in a warm up with the whole company of 30 cast memebers before being in the first big play (and pretty much the last) that I was in my first year of high school, so singing in public didn't come naturally. Still this concert to culminate the weekend of pizza parties for dorm residents to consider, What Did They Like About Vassar? and What Would Make It Better?  was going to be a beautiful wrap up on a Sunday night, with 75 singers total (out of a student body of 2000, so closer to 5 percent than not...) 

Well, the huge Vassar Chapel was pretty much Empty in the audience beside anyone singing. Then at ten of 8pm there was a campus wide black out..and the only place with lights was the chapel! Oh yeah!.

We had students streaming in so that was what I'd credit as divine orchestration. Now the reason I had my melt down  before my small role in How to Succeed in Business without really trying, was because the director, who basically was highly talented and had complimented me as a new chorus member over the year, reamed me out for being L-A-T-E! I was LATE because I'd been in an Invitational Track Meet which meant competing against 8 schools. I usually ran the 440 yard dash which was once fast around the track.

That event, the older faster gal who always cleaned up had a bad cold, so even though she competed, I beat her! Woe was me, that meant I had to run an extra lap in a relay, having done two laps already. I tried to tell my best buddy that she'd have to explain to the coach I thought my heart would burst, my legs give out or otherwise I'd go kaput.

It pretty much felt like Walking the Plank..or running it. But best bud, assured me, she wouldn't let me expire and that believe it or not, She Knew I could do it. She even let me wear our 'lucky Adidas sneakers'..which got extra sweaty that day.

Technically they were mine but I'm sure I let her use them whenever I could and even gave them to her when I went off to dance after that one year of soccer (which was a sport with cleats to survive mud action and basic protection from foot stompers, by mistake or on purpose...one of which broke my toe when I was standing still, so be warned,...schtuff happens and it ain't pretty on the ol' ball field sometimes.

But the musical theatre in the end was my breaking point even though I survived the three times round the track during that event. We did well enough...but maybe nowadays there would be better check-ins before over-extending what an athlete, especially a young sprout like myself, could and should venture, particularly in light of other heavy-duty commitments.

Where were those life coaches and helicopter moms when you needed them? Oh yeah, maybe that'd Why they got invented! Still, as many know the overall positive tales of my life got a super heartbreaking challenge a few decades later, when after having a son at age 30 who got to go to a year of the same high school and excel, not all ended so well. He and a group of buddies ventured to the most dangerous 'theater' of all, a real live person-eating waterfall and whitewater river about a mile or two from the high school.

They went on bikes, so there's one avenue of difficulty that warrants more oversight. Then the idea of going to a dangerous place needs to be a clear "NO GO!" from the highest ranks of the land to the most neighborly folks and passerbys, as a highly unreasonable thing to let anyone do.

Double that  "Firm and Fast" NO for all parents of minors, adults and school personnel who are monitoring children and anyone else who volunteers or is paid for rescuing people...They need to Work Harder at Preventing Such PLANS with Strong, Clear Messages and terms like 'jail, death, liability, major injury, harm and neglect that just would not add up to allowing for possible death and injury and a need for complicated, dangerous rescue efforts or a recovery mission (finding a body and retrieving it safely.) Now that is all Very Serious and yes, Depressing Stuff to consider. But Not Considering it is Even Worse..and more dangerous.

So the Kind thing to do is to Think Ahead, with one's Thinking KAPP (Kids, Adults, Parents PLANS..People Living, Learning, Loving by Agreements, Networking and Socializing in Schools and Society.) That should about cover the ways to appreciate people and places and make them better by keeping everyone in the game and on the team of growing in wisdom, kindness, health, talent, support and friendship.

Thanks for remembering that Life is a Team Sport and your ideas, plans, words and actions are the plays that make the journey meaningful...and life-giving or sadly more treacherous at times for others. Things can happen 'one way or the other' but let's aim to have that be with a growing awareness for our shared human condition at every age and stage of life. We can create happy endings with more forethought for safety and follow through by all actors and sportsfans in the big game of life. Glad you're on the winning team!