Hej Eva,
Just catching up. I like the salmon idea -- when I was teaching in Maine, my oldest was in scouting, and we had something called the 'buoy award' (it was a nautical/academy/engineering place) for when the scouts would do something 'really dumb'. Of course the adults sometimes got the award, and the kids delighted in this. This whapping with a salmon feels like it fits the same model -- a good natured wake-up call, made in public, hence always open to protest, though only the all-too-serious would actually protest it, as it is done with acceptance of being human, never with condemnation.
We had a great laugh when the assistant scoutmaster won the award one month for throwing away the sleeping bags on a canoe trip. The gear had been placed in trash bags to keep them dry in case of a capsize.
Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
Lesley College, 29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Barowy.html
_______________________
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Feb 01 2000 - 01:02:32 PST