Some folks we know are environmentalists. They acquire property around their house in New England as it becomes available, so that both foxes and foxglove can run free. They must own about 20 acres by now. Their dog has escaped close encounters with a bear, and they wish to acquire infrared night-vision military binoculars so that they can spy on a Great Horned Owl. Their house is reached via a long dirt road. I once contributed to Greenpeace on their behalf.
They are retired academics now, having taught the sciences for many years. But they are still politically active, attending protests to keep big-box stores away from their township and promoting world peace in general. They are physically active, even into their seventies (and soon eighties), kayaking until the knees needed replacements, and climbing mountains in state parks when the rocking chair and a good book might seem more appropriate for their time of life. Emeritus activities included building a Bog Walk for their community, furthering their neighbors knowledge of the ecosystem. They were also instrumental in encouraging older people to become disciplined students, through an institute for continuing education at their university.
Besides the climbing, snow-shoeing, paddling etc, they would frown on ingesting huge amounts of fat and sugar. They are vigilant of their own health, and aware of the obesity epidemic in this country.
So why did they send us a tower of sugar and fat ? The packaging for this tower was immense, endless amounts of paper stuffings and empty spaces in more and more boxes, the thing was a bottomless never-ending pile of nested cardboard, filled with packages of candied popcorn, buttery cookies, chocolate truffles-- not one but two packages of each. We don't have children, we are middle-aged in our 40's and 50's. What were they thinking? The company to blame is Harry & David, although to be fair ( ? ) there are less deadly things available in their catalog - like boxes of fruit.
How do we react when we don't celebrate Christmas or Hannukah, and we are preserving our health? What is the purpose of this gift and how do we react when we see them contradicting their own principles?
Similarly we received a book from them for our birthday that was another weird negation of their lifestyle. They are feminists - at least they are supportive of their two grown daughters who are gay and are also activists for women's equality. For my birthday they sent me a novel that was a cheap kind of Harlequin romance. It had a misleading cover, so perhaps that was the issue-- and it also had blurbs on the back that indicated some matter involving Shakespeare. But it was nothing more than crappy writing and some very aggressive marketing, plus jacket design. If they had opened the book and read a paragraph, they might have realized the tawdriness of the story and generally poor quality of the thing. I once discussed Theodore Dreiser with them, but since they are scientists, perhaps they don't have any time for literature.
These two "gifts" have led me to ask : who do they think we are ?
