"What's the matter, are you paralyzed from the neck up, or are you hurt?" - Jack Colton, Romancing the Stone

Alaska in spring. Somebody's gotta clean this place up.

Today we were driving back from the store. As we rounded the corner through a mountainous, pastoral scene unavailable most places jumped out in front of us. The Boy remarked, “The ground is back.”

The ground is finally back. After seven months, it finally returned. Our front yard will be snow free this week (if not the next) so the ground will finally be back at our house in Fairbanks after seven months of a snowy blanket.

Our primary focus this weekend was picking up the junk that accumulated in our yard over the course of seven months. You’d be surprised at how much “stuff” shows up on the ground, even when the only people leaving trash on the ground is us. It’s just not a walk in the park to pick up your own junk when it’s -40ºF, so your standards change a bit. That gum wrapper that fell out of your car? It’ll be there on May 7, 2006 when you finally decide to pick it up.

The Mrs. and I talked and decided that this task was well in the range of ability for The Boy, and this would be a good chance for him to learn the value of work, especially work well done. To look upon a clean lawn and driveway should be reward enough for the work he’d be doing. Right?

This, however, was more of a chore than you might normally imagine. The Mrs. took first watch over The Boy. You see, it was our idea that The Boy should be forced to pick up the junk. Did he put all of it down? Not a chance. But he was gonna pick it up.

I was cutting up the last of the wood that we had for this winter. I told The Mrs. that it would take about 10 minutes. It took 30. By the time I was done and had put the chainsaw up, The Mrs. and The Boy had moved to the front of our woodshed in their quest to make it look like a family of polite people (rather than a family of messy badgers) lived there.

I noticed right away that there was a bit of distance between The Mrs. and The Boy. It seemed that he was on the list that The Mrs. keeps of people who are “in trouble.” I thought this must be The Mrs. over-reacting. I joined the crew.

For whatever reason, it seems that little pieces of paper are entirely invisible to a five year old. The Mrs. had gotten to the point of feeling like the best way to get through to The Boy involved a the icy clutch of her fingers ‘round his neck. I thought she was overreacting. As usual, I was wrong.

At first, I attempted to work with The Boy. Teamwork is good, right? Well, to The Boy, teamwork can be spelled with an “I,” as in I don’t work. Not so good. Helping The Boy meant doing all his work for him. Soon enough, I became convinced that the best way to get through to The Boy involved the icy clutch of my fingers ‘round his neck.

We worked through this. Well, when I say we worked through this, I mean that The Boy worked through this. He picked up every bit of trash on the ground. There was crying, there was yelling, there was an emotional reconciliation.

Was picking the trash up off the ground important to him? Yes. It was to teach him about work, and how hard work was its own reward. This was the first point.

Second, I didn’t have to do it. I guess that negates the first part, but, hey, I’m human too. If I get this right, I won’t have to pick up trash in spring for another fifteen years.