Cornucopia of Ideas

As September creeped closer to October, I worked with my kids to decorate the house for Halloween. Pumpkins were purchased and placed on the front porch. Gravestones with kitschy sayings like “I’ll Be Back” were staked into the front flower beds. Petunias were replaced with colorful mums—we even tried those cool new multi-colored mums where they plant two mums of different colors in one pot and let them entangle so they look like one plant. And so on.

At some point in the project, I walked into the garage and stumbled upon a chalk drawing on the floor. Well, drawing wasn’t quite right. As I looked closer, I realized it was a diagram of a science experiment—listing all the steps in neat-ish 8-year-old handwriting. As far as I could tell, the diagram was detailing the steps required to turn an ordinary soccer ball into a re-tractable soccer ball—one with a bungee string attached so you could kick it over and over again without having to chase it.

I asked the girls, “Who drew this?”

Neither one wanted to admit it—fearing they were in trouble for drawing in the garage. After more prying, I found they did it together. I asked how it turned out. They showed me a soccer ball with piece of yarn attached with Elmer’s glue.

“Does it work?”

“Sure,” they said, and proceeded to kick the ball, which broke the string and went sailing into the street.

“Well, kind of.”

I laughed and we got back to work.

As I went about repairing the front yard grass from summer damage, I couldn’t help but ponder the importance of education in all our lives. I saw how my kids were transferring their knowledge from school to their after-school play. I saw how excited the attendees to our Fall Festival were to take what they learned from our speakers back to their agencies.

And then, I sat down to write this Publisher’s Note. As I paged through the proofs, I was struck by the sheer volume of articles and stories. A cornucopia of ideas spread across the pages of our largest issue this year.

I love how it turned out. Hopefully, you do too. If you do, or if you don’t, feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think.

Till next month…

Rodney J. Auth

Publisher

P.S. Did you miss this year’s Fall Festival? No worries. You can join us next year—September 29, 2016—for the next edition. Check out the video and photos from this year’s event at www.parksandrecbusiness.com.