Dan Patch lies a-moulding in the grave

Dan Patch lies a-moulding in the grave

In 1916, the great pacing horse, Dan Patch, was dumped to rest unmarked and unsung near a Minnesota riverbed.

On April 12th, 2008, a family’s pet bull dog was dumped in a roadside ditch nearby my home, marked with a blanket covering, left unsung to die because it suffered from an eye infection and a stomach tumor the owner had tied off with a string.

Movie critic Joe Morgenstern reminds us that "There’s no way of putting the genie of overstimulation back in the bottle. ... Kids live in a world of ever-increasing excitation. But we can expose them to alternate visions and alternate rhythms.... We can show them the best, and then hope for the best." Examples of such films are THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD, FANTASIA, OLIVER, THE WIZARD OF OZ, MARY POPPINS, AND THE BLACK STALLION.

Edwin Way Teale, the naturalist, also points out a sobering thought. "Each breaking wave was unique just as each human being is unique. No two other people would ever appear on earth alike in all respects to the two who then sat under the stars listening to the rush of water on the shore. The infinite originality of nature, originality in snowflakes and sand grains, in waves and human beings - and stars - runs through all the universe."

When IRON MAN and SPEED RACER fill up the big screens, how can you expect youth to reach responsible adulthood? I say with John Milton, the poet, "childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day." and then again with William Wordsworth, another poet 100 years later, "the child is father of the man. How should the reverence for a meaningful life lived, be noted in death? Would not teaching the lessons of contemplation and reflection rather than excitation not produce better children and adults? How should a uniqueness be remembered? With horses? With dogs? With living creatures? Why must creation be spoiled by individual and conscious acts of cruelty?