Real Homework

Well it's graduation day. It's a beautiful day outside, but graduation will be inside. It makes no sense to me, but then I've not bothered to look into all the machinations that led to using this indoor venue. So what will I say to those students, who I've become close to, heading out to slay dragons. I think the first thing I would say to them is that there are a lot of things on the surface of dragons that don't make sense. So before jumping to conclusions look into all the machinations that led to the design of the dragon. You may be out there swinging your sword at a dragon that spins hay into gold and gives it to you. A couple of graduation speakers ago, it was the Governor, some seemingly simple advice was passed on. We've all heard it a thousand times, but more as an order than as advice. "Do your homework!"  So what turns an order to advice? Life experience is the catalyst that turns order into advice. I could give you a hundred mind wrenching, self flagellating , horrendous conclusion examples of not doing your homework. But you'll come up with your own in time. I'm just going to tell you a semi-sad story that will still allow you to have a good laugh at my expense.

So we had just spent a fortune (by our standards) landscaping the backyard of our new home. We'd worked carefully with the landscape archetect in picking shrubs, trees and perennial flowers that would thrive in this environment.  We knew intellectually it would take time for the planting to mature. But emotionally we wanted a forest now.  So when we see this little beast appear from a hole in the ground and start munching we panic.  Sure it was kind of cute. It looked like a small, elongated chimpmunk. We tolerated it for a while but Peggy began imagining the beast was eating the roots of our investment. Then one of these beasts turned into three. So of course the job of saving the garden fell on my shoulders. All I had to go on was urban legend about how to counteract the destructive behavior of gophers. First I identified all the little tunnel entrances I could find and tried to plug them up. I don't know why that solution lives even in the folklore realm. They just come up somewhere else.  Well despite water restrictions I moved on to step two, flood them out. I sent waves of water into every tunnel I could find, and for a day or two it seemed to have had an impact. But, ah, they came back in force withlittle ones. It was clear what they'd been doing during the layoff.  It was a sad day for me. I'd been ordered to rid the garden of these beasts and so I went deep into my myth bag and went to get a gallon of gasoline. Well you know where I put that gas, and that I lit it, and that it smoked and I became overwhelmed with guilt and grief. But that was nothing compared to what would befall me the next day.

A co-worker friend of mine had a biology degree that might have payed some dividends in my delimma. I told him the whole story, complete with a description of the beasts.

"Hmm? They sound familiar. Did they have a bunch of lines on their backs?"

"Yeah! What are they?"

"Let me get my rodent book and you can look it up."

Well there the little guy was in all his glory. And he had a name, Thirteen Lined Ground Squirrel. Funny I'd never thought to count them. I'd also not thought about looking into his or her natural behavior.  Well let's cut to the chase. Under the behavior heading were these words, and I'll capitalize them for you in case you ever need this information. "THIRTEEN LINED GROUND SQUIRRELS ARE GREAT FOR GARDENS. THEY EAT WEEDS."

I was sure glad I hadn't name the little guys.

Believe it or not there is a happy ending to this life lesson. Two weeks later they were all back. Gasoline doesn't work either.

So now you know what HOMEWORK is really all about. Congratulations.