Kids still learning

Dear Editor,

Just 'cause school is out does not mean learning ends for children.

First, three little boys at the park buying gum; I told them they had to be leaving the park to buy gum. I said if they got caught chewing gum in the park the government would beat them within an inch of their life or make them kiss an ugly girl.

With the next breath they all said in one voice "we would rather take the beating!"

You know it is spring when the little boys bring up proudly a baby snake from over the canyon. It was biting them, but did not break the skin. Every year I have to preach to kids that playing with snakes is dangerous and a dozen people are killed yearly by bites from non posionous snakes. Diseases any predator carries with a bite may cost you your life.

Summer also teaches little kids not to tick off big kids. If I catch the trouble in time, I relate the story of the baby monkey and the snake story I saw back in the 1960s on a nature show to the little kids.

A baby monkey up in a giant tree was having great fun running up behind a snake of about 10 feet long laying on a big branch. The monkey would pull the tail of the snake and then run. Oh, he had great fun and did it most of a dozen times. But the monkey didn't notice the snake's head had slid under the branch and was waiting for the next pull of his tail and the monkey was caught and eaten by the monster snake.

Bill Donze

McCook