As a “Child Care Professional” it is my duty to see to the safety of the small. And a mere 36 days ago, on March 1st, the ice on a small local lake was a safe playground.
It is at this point, when the ice is four feet thick and you can drive a truck over it, that I abruptly call it unsafe, and the children are no longer allowed to romp on the smooth playground. I base my decision on a glance at the calendar. I refuse to even discuss my decree, though I will write a sonnet about my judgement a month later:
Just a month ago the ice was solid,
But at the start of March my trust gets thin
Before the ice does. Kids still want to skid
On the slick, but I forbid, with no grin
On my old face. I’m so dead serious
That kids, for once, obey. Something in my
Frosty eye warns them. A mysterious
Danger is dawning; they don’t dare ask, “Why?”
They just stay off the ice. In thirty days
The ice is gone. How can such a change be?
How can the trusted just go? This dismays,
If you’re stuck in your ways, but if you’re free
Your trust can adjust. It isn’t treason
When trust needs to face a lovely new season.
Thirty-five days later all that thick ice, that you could drive a truck over, is reduced to this:
It should be obvious you cannot drive a truck on the above lake, nor safely see a child walk on the water. The question then becomes: “On what exact day, between March 1 and April 6, does the ice become unsafe?”
I have done considerable research, risking my own life, and have plunged through rotten ice as far back as age 13, in 1966, (in chest deep water) and, on a pond shaded by hemlocks, as recently as yesterday (in ankle deep water). But such risk is my own, and the children entrusted to me should not be exposed to such risk, and therefore I expose them to a generalization, “Thou shalt not go out on the ice after March 1.”
Oh my Lord! The grief you can get for a generalization! It may well be that the ice was safe after March first. And, if it was safe, I was “depriving” the children of time rollicking upon a delightful playground. If this is true, I hereby confess my sin. Perhaps I worry too much. But, if the children had played out on the ice a day too long, one might have fallen through the ice and died, yet, because I didn’t know the exact day, they may have missed several extra days delighting on the ice.
If I was paid as “Climate Scientists” are paid, I might be be better equipped. All sorts of sensors would be deployed on the local lake. We would have a far better idea of the exact day the ice became unsafe to walk upon. It would only cost taxpayers X millions.
But my wisdom? My wisdom is free. I’ll talk your ear off, if you let me. I’ll only tax your patience. You can trust me. The wisdom of old men is like the ice: Free, but not forever.
Sunrise's Swansong 