2020 Life Logs, Day 113: Remembering Rachel Carson on Earth Day 50
Date: Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Very Windy and Cold; High 46 degrees, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Rachel Carson has always been one of my heroes. She was a writer, a marine biologist, and a conservationist. Anyone who loves the world’s oceans has probably read her book, THE SEA AROUND US. But it was her book published in 1962 that had such an impact on those fighting to keep our environment healthy. SILENT SPRING sounded the environmental alarm about the use of pesticides. She died of cancer only two years after the publication of that book, but her words of wisdom have stayed with us. During her college years, she took a summer course at the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole. She is honored there in Marina Park with a bronze sculpture depicting her in deep concentration as she looks out over the water. I told the Goldpebbles yesterday that I was going to take them to Woods Hole today to see Rachel. We planned to take face masks in case there were other people in the park. And we all agreed to stay in the car until there were no other people near the Rachel Carson sculpture before getting out of the car. The boys have grown up with Woods Hole as their ‘backyard’, but we all felt that today’s experience was so very different. There were absolutely no other people on the street, no other cars, and no one in the park. Definitely a first and it felt very strange. It felt like a ghost town. 
But we enjoyed having Rachel all to ourselves and I took photos of the boys with her with and without their masks on. Sam remarked that the photo with the masks will always remind us of celebrating Earth Day in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. It was also Sam that kept seeing things in Woods Hole that he had never noticed before. Like he said, “For the last month we have only been out of one house to drive to the other house.” The Cottage to Vidal Avenue to Grasmere Drive and back to Vidal. I promised him that things haven’t really changed during that time. It is just that our isolation has opened our eyes to a new way of looking at the same old things. But, like him, I kept seeing things I have never noticed before as well.
On our way to Woods Hole, we also visited some of our favorite places in Falmouth. We stopped by Falmouth Heights Beach, drove along Surf Drive to check out the various osprey nests, drove past Nobska Lighthouse and saw that it is being renovated, drove by Stony Beach in Woods Hole and were saddened to see all of the police tape keeping people from entering the parking area, and on the way home we stopped to see the baby lambs at Peterson Farm. There were other stops we wanted to make, but we ran out of time as we wanted to get back to my house by noon to watch the Woods Hole Research Center webinar hosted by Heather. I connected my computer to the television so they could see Heather on the bigger screen. It was interesting to see their eyes open wide when Heather started the webinar on the big screen. Jonah was quite impressed that one of the people Heather was interviewing was a young man named Jonah from the National Children’s Campaign. Sam was convinced that he would learn nothing new, but he was surprised to learn that he did not know about a website that Jonah (not our Jonah) mentioned as a resource for students in schools wanting to organize around environmental issues. Sam and a friend started an environmental club at their school this year and will now be able to use this resource going forward. https://schoolsforclimateaction.weebly.com/
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After watching the webinar, the boys were out the door and down on the dock launching all three kayaks. Exploring by kayak was their chosen activity to end our celebration of Earth Day 50. I sat down by the dock with Shadow and watched as they paddled and explored. The wind made it a chilly experience, but it gives me great joy to watch them explore. We had to end our day together early as I had a 3 pm appointment with my chiropractor. When I woke up this morning and my back problem was no better, I called and made the appointment. The office is scheduling appointments so that only one person is in at a time and they are taking every precaution to make it safe. Unfortunately, my chiropractor agrees with me. Whatever I did this time, is not going to be an easy fix. I’ll see him again tomorrow morning and then a couple of times next week. Then we’ll see how I’m doing. I can still function, but there are times when there is excruciating pain. If a just keep moving, which is not always easy, it goes away. So hopefully continued, careful movement interspersed with visits to Dr. Mike will get my back in working order soon.
