1. Mangroves are the MOST important part of nature

That's right, more important than ducks

Unless you grew up in Florida or some other, very specific coastal regions, you probably don’t know what a mangrove is, which is shocking because I’m pretty sure they were all we studied in 4th grade. That, and how to write a five paragraph essay. Usually about saving the mangroves. They are the only tree that grows in salt water and their elaborate root systems are a great place for tiny fish to hide from bigger fish and for things to lay eggs. People wanting more beach real estate has threatened their existence in a lot of areas, including the part of Florida where I grew up, which might explain why 4th grade was obsessed with brainwashing us into saving them.

Seriously, I knew everything about mangroves in fourth grade. We read about all the animals that depend on them, we learned how to identify the different kinds and their parts, we took field trips just to look at them. “Mangroves,” fourth grade taught me, “are an ESSENTIAL part of life.”

Then I moved away from Florida, and have remained unaffected by mangroves ever since. But when North Carolina schools started studying ecosystems and biomes, I brought in all these library books to tutoring about mangroves because, thanks to fourth grade, THEY ARE THE ONLY ECOSYSTEM I KNOW.

Yeah, I said it, Temperate Deciduous Forest. What are gonna do about it?

2. Teddy Roosevelt: World’s Greatest Human
Teddy Roosevelt is not only my favorite president (sorry, James K. Polk, it’s true), but also the person from history I would most like to meet. In fact, the only reason I’m doing the librarian thing is because my actual dream, solving time traveling mysteries with TR, proved totally unfeasible.

TR would be like a more badass version of Inspector Gadget, I would be Penny, and Dr. Claw would be played by a bionic Thomas Edison. Brain would be replaced by an actual floating brain.

I think it’s because, unlike all modern politicians ever, he didn’t feel the need to conceal his entire personality behind a cardboard cutout designed to be boring enough to offend no one. Teddy Roosevelt knew what he liked, and it was exploring the wilderness, digging canals, and big game hunting. And if you didn’t like it, tough, because he was going to do it anyway. Also, this one time he got shot during one of his speeches and just kept going. This may be the only fact the girl I tutor will remember about US history, which is fine since it’s THE BEST ONE.

3. Americans love catchphrases
Currently we’re learning about the American Revolution, mostly from a book called King George: What was his problem? by Steven Sheinkin. The great thing about this book is that it concentrates on the characters and tells amusing anecdotes rather than trying to cover fifty years of history in two pages. It also tries to tell readers the truth about historical figures and quotes that the author assume you’ve already heard. Except if you grew up in Korea, you know George Washington just as “that guy on the money” and have never heard “The British Are Coming!” to advertise UK imports. So a lot of these little stories just strike her as really weird.

In fact, her main impression of Paul Revere was that he was kind of a jerk. After seeing something like this map in her book and realizing that there were at least two other riders out warning people, she decided that Paul Revere was “just taking all the credit”. I tried to lay the blame on Longfellow, but she was adamant.

“Give me liberty or give me death” (Patrick Henry) and “I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country” (Nathan Hale) were both similarly unimpressive because, with fifth grade practicality she noted that, no matter what Britain was trying to pull, “I would rather be alive.” About the only one we could both agree was pretty awesome is privateer John Paul Jones shouting at a British captain demanding his ruined ship’s surrender “I have not yet begun to fight!” We both agreed that was pretty awesome.

On a side note, she has apparently been here long enough to see America as “the good guys” in most things (except for the treatment of Native Americans which she decided was “really mean”). However, unlike a lot of her classmates who grew up here, she also feels sorry for the British whenever they lose.

4. Bottled Water: it may KILL you
It was pretty much an accident that the day we were studying renewable resources and water conservation was the same day I’d read a blog post about the bottled water documentary Tapped. This was the day that I tried to convince the girl I tutor that it was not mortally unsafe to drink tap water, or “sink water” as she calls it. Basically, she thought I was crazy and started looking at me like I might drop dead in front of her from my many years of ingesting this deadly liquid.

Me: I have a metal water bottle I fill up every day in the sink.
Her: Don’t you have water fountains at school?
Me: What kind of water do you think is in those? It’s the same as tap water.
Her: (horrified gasp)

Then, because it was fresh in my mind, I told her about the lack of standards in bottled water and how some of it is just regular tap water, but in bottle form. She looked suspiciously at the bottle of water next to her and said, “I’m never drinking again.”

Luckily, that was three weeks ago and she doesn’t appear to have died of dehydration yet, so I don’t seem to have done any lasting damage.

Bonus Tutoring Story
Yesterday we were talking about the tundra and came upon a picture of polar bears. This conversation happened:

Her: Polar bears need to live where it’s cold.
Me: Yep.
Her: But they’re endangered because the cold places are warming up.
Me: Also yes.
Her: Why don’t we just shave them? Then they could be okay where it’s warmer.
Me: Are you a polar bearologist? Best idea ever!!!!

Then I told her how polar bear skin is actually black underneath their white fur and she decided against a great polar bear shaving because they would end up looking “too weird”.

1. The Water Tower

So this water tower was originally a really drab blue, but they decided to jazz it up when I was in middle school and hired an artist to paint gigantic native Florida birds on it with some clouds in the background. This made total sense, until someone decided that the water tower’s natural shape would lend itself really well to painting a big orange cage over them all. Obviously this image creates a few troubling philosophical questions: if those are clouds WITHIN the cage, did some even larger person put a cage over THE SKY? How could these birds, even at normal size, even fit in a bird cage? Is this a metaphor for human interference being akin to a harmful cage put over THE ENTIRE NATURAL WORLD? Or, we could go with my immediate reaction the first time I saw it: “OMGOD THAT OCTOPUS IS ATTACKING THOSE BIRDS!”
Apparently the city agrees with my complaints because they wanted to paint over it awhile ago, but people complained, saying it was “good for giving directions”.

2. The Panama Canal Museum

Not too many people know that Seminole, Florida is home to the The Panama Canal Museum. Including me, until a few summers ago when a lady who worked there came into the library asking for books about teddy bears for their Theodore Roosevelt celebration. Naturally I had to investigate. Their website is actually pretty classy for something that’s in the parking lot of Kmart in Seminole’s glorious mall, so I naturally used my one day off that week to go visit. It’s pretty much a single room next to the bank, and the exhibits are mostly pictures on the walls. Oh, and this headless mannequin:

Yep. That's the picture of a head they've stuffed into its gaping neck hole.

Clearly, a classy joint. They even have a gift shop where you can buy jewelry, The Panama Canal Museum Cookbook, and postcards to send saying that you’re not at The Panama Canal, but it’s the next best thing. Clearly a must see for any visit to Seminole, or at least Seminole Mall.

3. Seminole Community Library

Okay, maybe this is only one of the best things because I’ve spent so much of my life there (especially the last few years), but you’ve got to admit, this is one pretty sweet puppet theater:

Taken from the City's website; you'd think they would've gotten an official photographer who understood about flashes

And now that I don’t work there, it’s even sweeter, because I don’t have to worry about kids climbing on it, jumping on the chairs, throwing puppets at each other, swinging on the curtains, or, one memorable night, using it as a bathroom. I would definitely suggest putting on a puppet show if you happen to visit (don’t worry, it’s been cleaned). Also, thanks to the eccentric book-buying habits of my former supervisor, we now have the County’s premiere collection of cat-related picture books. So, you know, that’s something.

4. Publix

But not just any Publix. The Publix where Rob ate peas out of a can in the parking lot all because he saw them on a billboard:

The mystery to this picture is how we got the can open in the parking lot

Pinellas County: Florida's gimpy right arm, or maybe just some weird growth

But don’t be fooled by the palm trees and Village Inn’s. Death can still stalk me here.

The Ocean

So on the Gulf Coast we don’t really get any jellyfish, but we do have tons of sting rays. They lie flat on the shallow sandy bottom until you step on them, when they whip their stingers around, and soon you’re in searing pain while your friend is peeing on your ankle to sterilize the wound. So, not a great conclusion to a beach day, let me tell you. The best way to deal with them is to shuffle your feet in the sand as you enter the water, which will scare them away but also make you look like a tool. In consequence, we had to watch at least one outdated, School House Rock-esque video in fourth grade science explaining this in cartoon form. And ever since then I have been terrified to swim in the ocean, for fear that, when putting my foot down, I will step on one and end up covered in urine. Now that I am slightly older and know more about the ocean, this fear has only broadened into a generalized terror of putting my feet places I can’t see. Do you know what kind of crazy shit lives in the ocean?



I’m not taking my chances. That place is a sparkling, tourist-ridden death trap.