The Median Sib

I’m going to do it again. Saturday night (and maybe Friday, too) I’m going camping. I’ve selected the place. I’m really getting into this. There is just a feeling of freedom and enjoyment of nature. I’ve checked the weather, and it looks like a perfect weekend for camping.

Rosa Parks died yesterday at the age of 92. As a teacher, I have taught lessons on Rosa Parks for as long as I’ve been teaching. Having grown up in the 60’s, I’m old enough to vaguely remember stores with “white” and “colored” water fountains and bathrooms. I can remember separate schools for white children and black children. It was a world very different from today. There were some things that were better back then, but segregation and racial prejudice were not among them.

It’s difficult to explain to modern children the tremendous courage it took for Rosa Parks to refuse to give up her bus seat to a white man. Nowadays we can’t even imagine such a thing! I’m thankful that our children have role models from the past, such as Rosa Parks, who stood up for what was right, regardless of the personal cost. I wonder who their role models from today will be. It is often the everyday person - someone not in a position of prestige or power - who ends up being the most influential. An ordinary person, like Rosa Parks, doing extraordinary acts…and changing our world.

I read a news report today that Theresa Heinz Kerry was awarded $15 million in the wrongful death suit she filed after her husband, Senator John Heinz, was killed in a mid-air crash of an airplane and a helicopter. She sued the owners of the airplane in which her husband was traveling along with the owners of the helicopter. $3 million of the settlement goes to Heinz Kerry as the executor of the estate, and the remaining $12 million goes to her and the three sons she had with Heinz. The crash also killed six others - including two first-graders on the ground.

I am wondering if the families of each of those six others also received $15 million. Where does one find information such as that? I would think that surely they did, but you can never tell. The news report, of course, was only about Heinz Kerry.

A personal opinion and aside: Heinz Kerry was enough reason not to vote for John Kerry in the last election although he provided enough reasons on his own - and I haven’t knowingly purchased a Heinz product since then - and won’t in the future.