Tuesday, November 12, 2019

TONS and TONS of red cars


by Rockin' Eco Hero - Steve Trash

Have you ever purchased something beautiful, awesome, unique, amazing, fantastic… like a new car? It was red. It was beautiful. You TOTALLY loved that car. But as you drove around town you started to notice that there were were TONS and TONS of beautiful red cars (just like yours) on the road? Obviously, there were no more red cars on the road AFTER you purchased yours than BEFORE . What happened? I know the answer because I am a full-time, working, professional MAGICIAN and I think about this stuff a lot. Here's what happened. By purchasing a red car, you sent a signal to your mind that red cars were important to you, so your mind - unconsciously - began looking for red cars. And because your mind began LOOKING for them, you began SEEING them. Seeing and processing takes mental energy, so we prime our minds to SEE what we expect to see. It's just easier. It takes less mental energy/work. Our minds are designed this way. Bias, preconceived ideas, prejudices, can make us ACTUALLY SEE THINGS that are misrepresentations of the truth. Our mind is seeking to confirm our bias for an idea. Remember there were no more red cars... we just began noticing them because we told our minds red cars were important. We see what we have told our mind to see, but we DON'T REALIZE THIS. So... take it from a magician... it's a very good idea to occasionally question your picture of the world. This applies to politics, business, family, happiness, world-view… everything. You and I may be seeing ONLY what we expect to see... rather than the truth. It’s your mind. Make informed and wise use of it. 

### 


Sunday, November 3, 2019

Art is JUST as important as Science. Here's why...


by Rockin' Eco Hero - Steve Trash

I am a big fan of science.

Science is the study of how the natural world works, through observation and experimentation. Seriously – I’m a big fan.

I am, however, not a scientist; I’m an entertainer, a communicator and, on my best days, an educator.

I actually love science and STEM so much, I created a PBS KIDS TV science show – STEVE TRASH SCIENCE – to showcase various aspects of it.

By the way, STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. I love all of these disciplines, but to me, there’s something missing. STEM lacks power. It lacks steam.

That’s it! It lacks “A”— STEAM. It lacks the Arts.

Now I, admittedly, am biased toward the arts, but not to the exclusion of science – not at all. Like I said, I love science, but I think STEM alone is missing out on an opportunity. It’s missing a direction – you might even say it’s missing the “energy” (see what I did there?) to really go the places we should be going.

STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art – of all kinds – and Math. Art helps us choose the right direction for the science.

STEM projects are all about solving problems. How does the planet work? How fast is the Earth moving around the sun? How teeny-tiny-itty-bitty can we make a computer chip? How intelligent can we make a robot? How mega-tall can we build a building?
These are all really cool questions to ask and problems to solve. They really are!

Here’s the deal, though. The value of the arts – all arts, whether drama, painting, literature, sculpture, theatre, music, high art, low art or folk art – is the stories.

The stories we choose create our meaning.

We say, “We need to create energy that makes no pollution and is renewable.” That’s a story. We say, “We need to treat each other with respect and dignity.” That’s a story. We say, “We need to build devices that will save lives all over the world.” That’s a story.
That’s why art belongs in STEM – transforming it into STEAM – because stories matter.

Consequently, stories inform all sorts of decisions we make. Stories determine who we will or won’t be friends with. Stories determine what church we’ll attend. Stories determine what goals we set for ourselves and believe we can achieve. Stories determine what we think is good or bad. Stories, literally, determine who we think are the good guys or bad guys. Stories are powerful.

Stories matter. Art tries to deliver good, truthful, real, illuminating stories; sometimes it misses, but that’s the goal. Art is about seeing the unseeable and knowing the unknowable. In some ways, it’s kind of like spirituality: Art is trying to make understandable something that’s hidden but is real.

Art is important. Stories are important.

Without good stories, it’s possible we choose unwise directions to take our science, technology, engineering and math. It’s art that gives STEM a North Star – a direction. Art is about thinking through the story. We say, “Hey, that’s important … So, let’s go there.”

They really matter.

Art and science are not mutually exclusive, either, as some might think at first. After all, look at Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan. Together their brains would be larger than the entire planet of Mars (just kidding). They are not just amazing scientists but also artists of communication. They understand not only the importance of stories but the important stories to tell.

At its best, art shows us the best of what we humans can be and how we can keep getting better. The “how” is science. The “what” is art. The “what” should guide the “how.” The “what” should help us choose our North Star.

The how is science: “How do we get this done?” The what is art: “What should we be working on?”

STEM needs Art.

STEM deserves Art.

Thus, it transforms into STEAM, creating our best-possible human story.

by Rockin' Eco Hero - Steve Trash






Friday, October 4, 2019

Steve Trash takes the spotlight at 2019 SHOALSFEST Oct. 5 | 1:45 p.m. and 5:45 p.m. | McFarland Park, Florence


Magic and music combine at the inaugural ShoalsFest! Joining such talents as Sheryl Crow, Mavis Steeples, Amanda Shires and Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Steve Trash will make an appearance as magician extraordinaire at the Oct. 5 festival.

Set in beautiful McFarland Park, along the Tennessee River in Florence, AL, ShoalsFest will welcome award-winning performer Steve Trash and his awe-inspiring feats of magic, adding to the full afternoon of entertainment on tap. ShoalsFest creator Jason Isbell is a longtime fan of magic in general – and Rockin’ Eco Hero Steve Trash in particular – so inviting the global sensation to be part of the one-day festival was an obvious choice.

Festival-goers will be able to get up close and personal as Steve Trash weaves his way among the crowd for shows at 1:45 p.m. and 5:45 p.m., performing logic-defying sleight-of-hand magic.  

For more information on Steve Trash, visit www.stevetrash.com.
For more information on ShoalsFest and to purchase tickets, visit www.shoalsfest.net.

Friday, September 20, 2019

Three Trillion Tons






By Steve Trash - Illusionist, Eco-Educator, and Rockin' Eco Hero

Three trillion tons…. Bear with me a moment…please.  I’m thinking out loud and want you to consider an idea.  Please don’t respond to this blog post with a rebuttal, just think about it.  Considerate it.  Let it soak in.  If you disagree… fine.  You disagree.  I’m cool with that.  But hear me out, because I’m thinking out loud here.  Connections in the natural world are so abundant that scientists can say, definitively “Everything Is Connected”, and it’s NOT an overstatement.  It’s not hyperbole.  It’s a fact.  It’s a fact that’s provable by science (biologically, chemically, atomically).  The Earth is an interconnected system.  The system is connected to systems of the universe.  It’s weird to think about but it’s true.
Here are just a few simple examples of those connections… You and I (our bodies) are made mostly of water (60%... babies even have higher percentages) and that water comes to us from waters, lakes, streams, groundwater, and rivers around us… in the natural world.  We are connected to the water around us.  The fact that bees all over the world accidentally pollinate HUGE HUGE amounts of the fruits and veggies that we humans eat (no pollinators means no food like apples, blueberries, broccoli, watermelons, squash, peanuts, carrots, almonds, strawberries, and honey).  We are connected to the bees.  The fact that following a typhoon in Japan a multi-ton concrete and steel pier washed up on the Oregon coast (a several thousand mile journey across the entire Pacific ocean), means that the salty waters of the ocean are connected, even at super long long long distances.  The east is physically connected to the west.  During the dust-bowl of the 1930’s, dust showed up in New York City (literally dust from Oklahoma landed on people and plants and buildings in NYC).  City Slickers and Sooners are connected to each other physically.  Examples of the connections in nature are simply everywhere.  Each day, scientists dig deeper and discover more and more and more connections in our natural world. 
With those connections in mind, please consider the idea that we humans have been dumping CO2 into the atmosphere (by burning fossil fuels – coal, gasoline, oil, to converting it into energy) for at least 134 years.   This is kind of a long time in human years, but a very short time in geologic Earth years.   We’ve added a VERY LARGE AMOUNT of CO2 into the environment.  For me, it starts to beg the question… “Does it make sense that an estimated three trillion tons of additional CO2 in the atmosphere would have an effect?”   Folks that study this stuff say… yes.   Generally speaking, I’m a skeptical guy, but I tend to trust doctors diagnosis of disease, the engineers choice of lunar module heat shield materials, the mathematicians theoretical ideas about black holes).   If we’ve added a BOAT LOAD of CO2 to the environment in a VERY short period of time, do I believe this will have an effect?  The answer for me is yes… yes… it makes sense to me that it would.  I’m not sure WHAT effect it would have, but it TOTALLY makes sense to me that adding THAT MUCH of something to the atmosphere would have some effect.  So projections from climatologists about the outcomes of this added CO2 might be incorrect, but the fact still remains, that in an interconnected environment, we are significantly changing ONE ASPECT of the environment and it certainly seems reasonable to me that it would cause changes and/or have an effect.  I’m NOT saying that all the models and predictions made by climate scientists are accurate.  They are models.  I AM saying that it makes sense to me that… it’s likely all this extra CO2 will have (or is having) an effect and if we can do something to STOP adding (what is essentially large amounts of pollution) to the environment, that’s a very good idea.  We have alternatives to burning stuff to make energy.  In fact, there are lots of interesting alternatives available to us right now.  It makes sense to me that we should turn our compass away from pollution making energy generation and towards no pollution energy production.   We KNOW that everything in the environment is connected… everything.  Humility would dictate to me that we choose a path that does less harm to an environment that we live in but did not create.  We are passengers on the space ship… Earth.   It seems to me that we can choose a path that reduces or eliminates our pollution and this would be a good thing.  We can measure the amount of CO2 we’re adding to the environment and from that we can make an assumption that it will have some effect, we should consider, pointing the compass away from adding large amounts of pollution to the environment and towards a way of providing for all humans energy needs in ways that have less or no impact.   This is possible.  This makes sense.   ### #climatestrike #environment #makessensetome #everythingisconnected 

An Illusionist's Take on Combating the Dangers of Deepfake Videos



By Steve Trash - Illusionist, Eco-Educator, and Rockin' Eco Hero

Before you toss that steaming, red-hot iron skillet to someone else – stop, think, act. 

In the very near future – possibly as soon as our next election cycle – you are going to see, and potentially share, online images, both video and still photos, that are totally made up. They are fabricated. They are fake, but you won’t even pause to question them. 

It’s not even like they will be honest misinterpretations of events by journalists trying to find the truth under murky circumstances. It’s not like they will be misperceived events by key, first-hand eyewitnesses. 

They are 100 percent demonstrably false. They are literally a trick – and they will feel like a scalding, red-hot iron skillet that you must share with others right now.

These deepfake videos and photos are created with the intention of deceiving you and manipulating you into sharing a false narrative with the world. “False narrative” is a fancy phrase that just means a lie. 

Illusionists create false narratives, but we aren’t liars because you know what we are creating is an illusion. Everything we do is predicated on this idea: that we are creating illusions. It’s in our job description.

If you see a magician doing something amazing, you think, “Wow, that’s cool.” You don’t rush toward the door screaming in terror because you’ve just seen someone violate natural laws. You know it’s an illusion. 

You know the lady isn’t really floating in the air. You know the rabbit didn’t really appear out of an empty hat. It’s all an illusion. 

Deepfake videos, on the other hand, are similar to the magic illusionists create, but they cause real harm. They are dangerous exactly because you do not know they are illusions. 

They are so cleverly designed that you’ll perceive them as completely true. You won’t even have a notion that they are lies. To add to our confusion, these images will be generated in real time, giving them a truthful feel. 

These images will be demonstrably false. They will not be a genuine depiction of any actual event – but they will appear to be very real. This is not good.

The human mind is capable of some extraordinary things – science, integrity, honor, math, love – but it can be extremely fallible. Magicians know this, and it’s why magic tricks work on our minds. We give you tiny bits of information, and you make lots of big assumptions. 

Our minds have worked like this forever. Generally speaking, it’s why we’re still around as a species. Our ancestors heard something scary stirring in the bushes, and they ran. They didn’t wait around to see if it was a lion or a really big squirrel. The slow responders get eaten by the lion.
We are descendants of the scaredy-cats. They made quick assumptions, and it paid off for them – and for us. We possess the DNA of scaredy-cats. 

Deepfake videos are aiming right at that quick judgment, scaredy-cat mind. Our minds are primed for it. The deepfake videos are screaming at us to pick them up and share them with others, shouting, “This is totally real! Others need to know about this! We need to do something about it! Share it! Share it now!”

I am a professional illusionist. I use perception in my job every single day. I create the illusion that a golf ball just magically vanished into thin air. Seriously – that didn’t just happen, did it? Actually, no, it didn’t. I was able to use your assumptions and your quick-judgment mind to create a fun illusion.

We know the human mind makes thousands and thousands of assumptions every day. Our minds do this to conserve mental energy. Using mental energy is taxing; making assumptions means less stress. Questioning your assumptions means more stress. Logically, we’re going to take the less-stress route whenever possible, and this creates holes in our perception.

Illusionists know where the holes are, and we use them to manipulate you. False assumptions are going to lead to false conclusions. This is exactly how all magic tricks work. 

For example, if I take a stack of three or four large books out of a magic hat and show you the hat is now empty, you will assume the hat is completely empty. You assume this because I’ve given you no reason to be suspicious. It all feels fair and truthful. 

It’s not. You’ve just been tricked. 

The hat has a secret compartment that hides a rabbit, and the books are not solid. They collapse to make space for the rabbit and expand when taken out of the hat. You assumed incorrectly because of your supporting assumptions about hats and books, and it would have taken a lot more work to be skeptical of your assumptions. 

If I pass a hoop over a floating woman, you’ll assume there can be no skinny wires holding her up. The assumption is that the hoop is solid and would hang-up on the wires, so there can’t be any wires. 

This is a false assumption. You made assumptions about wires and hoops, about their nature, that were incorrect. You were fooled. Your quick-judgment mind was fooled. 

Let’s leave the magic show and move to politics. Things you assume will go unquestioned. 

Are Democrats evil? The image you’ve just seen online must be true. You know this instantly, without even questioning it. 

Are Republicans evil? The image must be true. 

Are Russians evil? The image must be true. 

Are Muslims evil? The image must be true. 

Are Christians evil? The image must be true. 

Remember, we humans are already biased to believe things that support ideas we hold true and to ignore the things that do not mesh with our beliefs. This is called confirmation bias. We literally see what we want to see and ignore what we don’t. 

This makes sense because to do otherwise requires an endless amount of brain energy – and that’s just too exhausting. However, that leaves us vulnerable to mental manipulation. The very fact that our minds conserve energy by taking shortcuts creates dangerous opportunities in a modern, hyper-fast, technologically-connected and potentially viral world. 

These deepfake videos and photos rely on this shortcut to emotionally grab us, hold us and take us captive to the narrative. They have real-world consequences, too. 

Here’s a simple example: What if a person you know appears, in a video, to be doing something immoral or illegal? Do you instantly believe it, or do you question it? Would you be outraged and share it online moments after you’ve seen it? What if you believe all cops are bad? What if you believe all cops are good? This will deeply influence how you see the truth of the video. You won’t even pause to question it. It’s true. Share it. 

Let’s say a politician or public figure appears, in a video, to be doing something disgusting, vile, or repulsive. If you dislike this person already, you will automatically believe this video to be true. It will go unquestioned. It supports something you already believe. 

“That’s a bad person,” you’ll instantly say to yourself. “Of course the video is true.” If it supports something you already believe, you are unlikely to question its truthfulness. “Yeah. That dude is evil. Of course he did that. I need to share this so other people will know.” It’s a hot skillet, and others need to know about it – press share!

The hotter the skillet, the more likely we are to instantly toss it to others without questioning its truthfulness. This is not good, because we are sharing a lie with millions of people, and we’re doing it in nanoseconds. 

This has the dangerous potential to create angry mobs of folks who are outraged over stuff that simply didn’t happen. We can share the red-hot skillet with millions long before we’ve evaluated whether it’s true or false. 

So, as a peddler of joy, surprise and harmless false-assumption-fun, I as a magician have a small suggestion that might keep us from setting the whole house on fire.

Stop. Stop before you pick up the hot skillet and toss it to someone else. First, put some space between stimulus and response. Then take a moment to think – yes, think. Ask the question: Is this true? Being skeptical is mentally healthy.
Remember, the more outlandish and the hotter the skillet, the longer the stop should be – and the deeper the questioning should go.
Before passing the skillet on, ask: Are there any holes in the narrative? What’s the source? Does anything seem “off” about the picture? Does it engender in you very strong emotions? 

Most important of all, does it support something you already believe strongly? If yes, take a long pause before sharing and seriously think about it. 

Quick judgments and assumptions kept our ancestors safe from being eaten by wild animals and got us, evolutionarily, to this exact moment in history. We owe them a lot. It has worked super well, but right now we’re facing a real – and possibly existential – crisis. Our lives are now so interfaced with technology that our quick-judgment scaredy-cat minds have been transformed from an asset to a liability, and we didn’t even notice the change.

In the 21st century we rarely have to make instant life-and-death decisions multiple times a day – unless you’re a cop or firefighter, and even then, it’s super rare. There is almost no need to instantly respond to something online, even when it feels like an emergency. 

What we really need to do is learn to stop, think, then act. We need a new system of response. We need a new habit. We need to develop a new habit of making considered, thoughtful judgments. But it’s hard. It’s really hard. It really does go against our instincts, but that’s what responsible citizens do. We take responsibility for our actions in society.

We must retrain our minds a bit because our minds are yelling and screaming to pass the hot skillet. We need to stop. Think. Then act. Our technological connectedness makes it absolutely critical that we pause before reacting. In fact, he hotter the skillet, the longer you should give that idea to cool off before you toss it to someone else. This is not easy because it goes against our instincts – our instinct to share, to run from the loud noise in the bushes. We’ve got train ourselves to respond differently. 

Can you train yourself to not instantly respond to instinct?

Sure you can. Babies get the impulse to pee, and what do they do? They pee. They do it right there. But as we grow older, we retrain our minds to respond to “I need to pee” in a new way. Rather than releasing our bladders immediately on impulse, we constrict and hold it until we reach a toilet. 

We train ourselves to override the instant response impulse. We, in fact, get so good at this overriding, it becomes a habit, and we don’t even have to consciously think about it anymore. 

If you can hold your pee, you can surely stop, think, act before sharing. 

If you stop, think, act, and the skillet still stays hot – then fine, toss it. You probably didn’t share misinformation. The truth-seeking civilized world thanks you for your service. 

We humans have been around for a long time. We’ve made it through some system-shocking, cultural-societal-transformational changes before – the Stone Age, the Agricultural Revolution, the Iron Age and the Industrial Revolution – and each time we developed a new set of rules, guidelines, and habits to respond to the challenges of modern life. 

We’re once again at one of those major crossroads in human history. Deepfake videos are dangerous because they create a totally believable false narrative. They are dangerous because they feel totally real but are not. Deepfake videos are dangerous, most of all, because they use our own minds’ vulnerabilities against us. 

So … How do we respond?

Get accustomed to a new mental choice. Every time you see an outlandish, amazing, horrific, emotionally “hot skillet” video … stop, think, act before sharing. Be skeptical. Question it. Don’t just instantly share it. Don’t let your minds’ assumptions go unchecked. 

Cynicism is unhealthy, but skepticism is quite healthy. This simple three-word habit – stop, think, act – allows us to handle all the hot skillets that come our way without allowing them to burn the whole darn house down.

Which is a good thing. We can do this. Please pass the taters.

###









Sunday, August 18, 2019

ONE BRAIN... TWO MINDS - A MAGICIANS PERSPECTIVE


By Steve Trash - Illusionist, Eco-Educator, and Rockin' Eco Hero

I'm a professional magician, but I'm NOT a super-great-magician.  I'm pretty good.  

I've SEEN great magicians and I KNOW what they look like. I'm pretty good, BUT... I know this is true. 

 I AM... a GOOD thinker. I LOVE ideas and I love pondering stuff. I love asking the question... why?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not that smart, but I think and read and ponder. Sometimes I ponder deeply. Because my job is about understanding PERCEPTION (you gotta know something about perception to make it APPEAR THAT you can defy the laws of nature) I read and think about perception and how the mind works... a lot.

Here's something that MOST PEOPLE do not understand and I'd like to share with you. I think it will help you. I KNOW it has helped me.

You and I have ONE BRAIN, but we have TWO MINDS.  First is the FAST mind - (LEAPING LIZARD is what I like to call it) - great at quick decisions/gut reactions/involuntary responses.

Our second mind (remember one brain... two minds) is the SLOW mind - (WISE OLD OWL is what I like to call it) great at wisdom and long term decisions - which college to attend/meaning of life/how to treat others/truth/etc.

Because of the way our BRAIN is designed, we sometimes use our LEAPING LIZARD mind when (instead) we should be using our WISE OLD OWL mind.

Here's why... we NEED both minds... fast and slow. Fast is GREAT at super-quick-decision making (hear something scary in the woods... get outta there) - SAFETY - and slow is GREAT at getting to TRUTH.

Here's the problem, because we are UNAWARE that our brain has a fast and slow mind, we sometimes STOP at the emotional LEAPING LIZARD reaction to an event and do not ponder it any deeper - WISE OLD OWL. 


Instead of getting deeper to the TRUTH of the matter... by sending it to the WISE OLD OWL for contemplation, we react/respond/retweet/share something that (had we taken the time... we'd know is false or simply not accurate or possibly even destructive).

We tend to have an emotion/quick/reaction to something and just STOP there.

If we have a viscerally strong response to something or someone.. (good or bad), we may STOP at the LEAPING LIZARD mind and never consider that we've fallen short of THE TRUTH. We had a strong emotional reaction... so that must be TRUTH (it isn't necessarily truth) and it's the WISE OLD OWL'S job to discern truth... not the LEAPING LIZARD'S.

LEAPING LIZARD is GREAT... if you're jumping out of the way of a speeding car, or a foul ball is heading right towards your head, but it's TERRIBLE if you're evaluating your behavior as a human being or trying to seek wisdom or looking for TRUTH.

So... Consider doing this... PAUSE... and go DEEPER... if your LEAPING LIZARD brain is yelling... "That group is BAD". "Those people are evil." "I'm on the GOOD TEAM." Pause... and simply send this idea to THE WISE OLD OWL.

Next time you have a super emotional response to... anything... pause and ask the WISE OLD OWL to take a look.

Now... If the LEAPING LIZARD says, "it's Sunday, I should be happy..." then go and have a happy day! The WISE OLD OWL would agree. Thanks for reading.

#leapinglizard #wiseoldowl #happyday #fastbrain #slowbrain #theundoingproject

Sunday, August 11, 2019

Apple Trees and Apple Pies





By Steve Trash - Illusionist, Eco-Educator, and Rockin' Eco Hero

This is a picture of an apple.  Well, several apples actually.  I know, I know, they LOOK like pears, but trust me, they’re apples.  I grew them.  I know exactly what they are.  Trust me.  They are apples.  Eight years ago I planted the tree that grew them in my front yard.  They’re apples.  

Sometime around 1960, my Mom and Dad married.  Newlyweds do lots of things.  But mostly, they figure out how to live in really close proximity to a person they don’t know very well and they look for ways to make their new partner’s life better.  My newlywed Mom decided she’d try to cook “just like my dad's mom”.  She asked my dad, “What was the favorite thing your mom cooked for you?”  He thought a moment, and responded, “You know, Mama used to bake the most amazing apple pie.  I’d love to have that again.  I haven’t had it since I was a kid. Could you try and bake that?” 

Challenge accepted.  My Mom dove right in to making my Grandmothers’ excellent apple pie for her newlywed husband.  Now, apple pie (made from scratch) is pretty simple.  It’s time-consuming but it’s not hard to make.  Easy win, or so my Mom thought.  She got everything together to bake a “home-made” apple pie for her new husband.  She mixed.  She baked.  She served.  She waited.  My dad’s response?  “Oh this is really good apple pie, Honey, but it’s not as good as my Mom’s apple pie.”  My Mom thought, “Rats… I’ll try again”.  So she did.  Same result.  Good, but not as good as my Grandmothers’ apple pie.  One more try.  Same result.  Good, but not as good. 

Frustrated, my Mom took the problem straight to the source.  She phoned my grandmother up and said, “I’m trying to make your special apple pie for Will, but I just can’t seem to get it right.  Did you have some kind of “secret ingredient” or “bake it in some special way”?   My grandmother (a gentle and very very kind person) began to laugh.  She laughed out loud.  She said, “Betty… you will NEVER be able to make my apple pie.”  My mother was taken-a-back by this response.  My grandmother continued, she paused to catch her breath, "Because I never used apples.  I used pears.  Years and years ago, a traveling salesman broke a wheel near our home, we fixed it for him, and he paid us back with pear tree saplings.  When Wilbur (pronounced Wil-Bu if you’re from south Alabama) was a boy, he didn’t like pears.  He wouldn’t eat pears, but I didn’t have anything but pears to bake pies with, so I told him a little tiny “white lie”.  I told him the pear pie was an apple pie.   He loved those pies. I never had the heart to tell him otherwise.”  

Years and years passed, as did (eventually) my dad.  And my mother would dust-off this old family story from her mental filing cabinet of happy memories and share it with us kids.  We’d all get a great laugh out of it too.  She loved telling that story, and she was good at it. 

More years and years passed, and eventually she passed too. 

Sometimes a pear tree is not a pear tree at all, it’s an apple tree.  It’s an apple tree that is keeping alive a story about real people that lived their lives the best they could, about family mythology, about newlywed bonds strengthened, about laughter, love, a little white lie, and a much loved Grandmothers’ pie.  

So… every time I walk past that pear tree in my front yard nowadays… those people, that story, that love, that laughter, that history, that moment in time, all come to life for me.  

So, to me, it’s always going to be an apple tree, it can’t be anything else.  Know what?  I think I’ll go bake a pie.   Want some apple pie?


###

Tuesday, August 6, 2019

THANK YOU MARTHA GRAHAM FOR THE REMINDER


By Steve Trash - Illusionist, Eco-Educator, and Rockin' Eco Hero

In my opinion, this is true for EVERYONE (dancers, artists, engineers, dads, moms, scientists, bus drivers, school teachers, lawyers, child advocates, computer programmers), it's not your job to judge your contribution to the world. You are required - ONLY - to create THE WORK, your art, your love, your life - your unique set of "things that ONLY you can bring to the world". We judge ourselves harshly (I'm very guilty of this). We compare ourselves harshly. (I'm very guilty of this). Our job is to bring to the world that "thing" that only WE can bring. That "thing" that no one else can. Do that. Do that - to your fullest capacity - and then... be satisfied. Thank you for the reminder... Martha Graham. #marthagraham