I attended the very first Earth Day celebration in 1970 at Balboa Park in San Diego with a crowd of about 70,000 people. It was on a Wednesday, the weather was beautiful, about 68 degrees, and I must have skipped school that day.

I can’t remember who I went with or how I got there but I do recall walking from booth to booth looking for free stuff and having an unpleasant encounter with a San Diego cop, probably about being truant.

There is a vague recollection that I swore at him and he got all puffed up and intimidating, threatening to call my dad until I told him to go ahead, my dad was a lawyer…and then he walked away. Miss you Daddy!

I love the concept of EarthDay, of being good stewards and caring for Mother Earth, of passing on the torch to the next gen, but I probably won’t attend any large gatherings for a while–still being prudent about Covid and all that.

My local contribution to EarthDay is this neighborhood egret who just picked up something to eat; I think it’s a crab but I can’t tell for sure:

Happy Earth Day!