If I can extrapolate from a moment on my front porch, I venture to say that I think world views are beginning to change.  We had a get-together not too long ago to celebrate something of a big birthday for me.  I found myself in a group of friends, some old, some new, eating things we were pulling up from the ground.  The folks ranged from very young to let’s just say young at heart.  On saying our despedidos, one of the literally young ones admired the jasmine growing in the cement planter that is a permanent fixture of every home on the block.  And I wondered, how did she know it was jasmine?  Of course it smelled great, but this kid was only around 9.  I could climb a tree like nobody’s business when I was 9 but I wouldn’t even been able to recognize a jasmine plant, or most any other for that matter (save the lilacs which grew in a long row parallel to our gravel driveway — Lucinda William’s song “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” always remind me of home).  As for this little 9-year old budding botanist, I’m not sure where she’s getting it from.  I don’t think that schools have radically changed their curriculum since I was last familiar with it.  I’ve seen this awareness in other kids, too, that didn’t seem to be there before.  It looks to me like there’s renewed interest among the young and old in this world we’re living in.

QUESTION: is it just me or do you agree?  Is anyone else seeing the same thing – this increased interest and awareness in nature and how to use it?  Am I just a person that starts driving a Jeep who suddenly sees all the other Jeeps that were always there before?  Or is it a Prius, and a lot many more folks are getting behind the same wheel?