NOW WHAT?

                   TWO THINGS ARE INFINITE: THE UNIVERSE AND
                          HUMAN STUPIDITY; AND I AM NOT SURE
                                    ABOUT THE UNIVERSE
                                                  Albert Einstein

     Normally it is government or some big company that you are expecting the worst from and expect a fight for some common sense.  Now it is the people who run our private groups that have always been the rock of tradition and pillars of doing good.
      My most productive education came from my days in 4-H.  I will regret to my dieing day that I did not stay on through high school instead of being tied up in other things.  And of my 4-H memories is the time I went to camp at Rock Springs Ranch.  The first thing I always think of is the old farm house with the working water wheel.  It is such a part of my experience that it cannot be cut from the memories.
     My folks lived six miles apart growing up but met at Rock Springs Ranch at camp 100 miles away.  Their memories are of the Water Wheel and that little white house that was the office.  But now through some infinite wisdom the Kansas 4-H Council has condemned the house and waterwheel.  Probably the only working water wheel in Kansas.  AGHHHHHH!!!!!!!
     Now I try to write my stories after my first emotions go away because I want the logic to be the centerpiece of my story and not the emotion.  But sometimes the emotion does not go away.
     I am sure that there is probably a lot of solid reasons why the preservation of this part of history is hard to save and maybe just not economical, but really?  I recall no explanation or opinions being sent out statewide to councils and clubs.
     Has the move to bringing more urban kids into the 4-H tradition altered the traditions?  I bet not one city 4-Her has ever seen a real waterwheel unless they go to a theme park.  Has Rock Springs Ranch gotten so sophisticated and glossy that camp is just another place people send their kids to to get rid of them for a while?  It has always been a place kids wanted to go and they were enriched in more ways than you can list.
     And how many parents that went with their kids have memories from going up to help run the place?  How many counselors have their summer experiences that last a lifetime?
     I hope that the 4-Her's of Kansas, their leaders, and those who used to stand next to the water wheel and cool themselves with that mist, get up and say NO!  We will not lose one more part of our history, and some committee should start figuring out how things should be done and not how they want them to be done.
     All the county councils in Kansas need to set their foot down and say no to the tradition that that little white house and water wheel represent.  We might as well go bulldoze our historic sites to build hiways or ugly steel buildings.  Oh Heck, we are already doing that!