Happy Earth Day

It's the fortieth anniversary of the first Earth Day today.


It's also the twentieth anniversary of the first Earth Day that Isabel and I shared.


Seems insignificant, but it has some lasting memories for us.


Boston celebrated Earth Day that year (1990) with a march from Kenmore Square to the Esplanade, along Storrow Drive. Isabel and I had been dating for about a month at that point, though we'd known each other since the previous August. We hadn't told anyone at work that we were dating, because each of us had recently turned down another co-worker's affections with the excuse that we didn't date co-workers. So we had to keep it a secret.


Earth Day that year was a beautiful spring Saturday, and we marched with a couple of hundred others, behind a young man in a tie die shirt and leather vest with a bullhorn, chanting "Ho ho! Hey hey! Every day is Earth Day!" Except once he got distracted and said "Hey hey! Ho ho! Earth day is every....Um...Ho ho...." Even now, whenever we hear anyone saying that "hey hey ho ho" chant, we laugh and repeat the bullhorn guy's mess up. Ah, memories.


When we reached the Esplanade that day, Isabel and I sat under a tree and listened to whoever the speaker was, telling us about the environment. Someone took our picture as we sat under that tree, holding hands. Which we were used to, frankly, because people used to take our picture all the time. We were a damn cute couple. We overheard the photographer telling someone else that he worked for the Boston Herald.


And then we remembered that this meant there was a chance that everyone at work would see a picture of us holding hands. Such a picture would definitely end up on a bulletin board outside our office, because we figured this was definitely going in the newspaper -- we were that cute a couple.


Fortunately, the Herald went with a picture of the guy with the bullhorn. We were safe.


Until we got caught making out at a party a month later.


Anyway, to celebrate Earth Day, here is a link to a video version of Dr. Seuss's classic, The Lorax. The book was published in 1971, and the video linked here appeared on TV the following year. It's a great video, co-produced by Friz Freleng, the former Warner Brothers cartoon director, and featuring the vocal talents of Eddie Albert, who had just finished his run on Green Acres and was a couple of years away from his brilliant portryal of the evil prison warden in The Longest Yard.


Enjoy the day. It's a beautiful one here.