When I was but a mere slip of a child, I remember the family piling into the old (it was old even back then) white Chevy and setting sights south and east from our Pennsylvania steel town to Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Even though my father insisted on vacation variety, every summer we'd spend at least a week with some of our cousins on this strip of land. Here, we would climb the famous Jockey Ridge sand dune the Wright Brothers once trod and roll down the sloped side. Hopefully, we would be able to keep from screaming with fear/delight; otherwise, we'd end up with a mouthful of soft white sand.

As we landed, we would stare up at the blue sky and the seagulls. We could only imagine what it would be like to actually soar above this dune.

Because of these trips, the Outer Banks remains one of this family's fondest memories. Cora even visited this historic site during a family reunion; however she was only four-years-old at the time, so she was too young to remember this trek. However, four recent events brought Kitty Hawk and the Outer Banks to Cora's attention. Here's how the situation evolved:

1. I'm still plowing through boxes of old photographs. One envelope revealed the images from our family reunion, including photos of Cora in front of the unforgettable light house. She says (with a little sarcasm and regret), "That's great, mom, but I don't remember being there."
   
   
2. Cora discovered Brian Trumbore's recent series about Kitty Hawk and read that Brian was actually able to visit the Outer Banks, in spite of?
   
   
3. Hurricane Isabel. This storm focused our attention on the damage a hurricane - even a "small" one - can do to a shoreline.* The Outer Banks are particularly vulnerable to storms, and this shoreline has often changed because of fierce weather. However, the televised coverage also brought our attention to the fact that this is the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brother's first flight.
   
   
4. The five-day First Flight Centennial Celebration begins at 10:35 am on December 17, 2003. At this event, a replica of the Wright brother's first plane will fly from the exact location and at the exact time as the brother's first flight. Although the celebration sounds like the "thing" to do in December, this date and time presents problems, possibilities, and parallels between what the Wright brothers faced and what we face today as parents.

The Wright brothers had an agenda, and they worked together as a team. We - as parents - can develop our own agenda around this event and work as a team with our kids. Since the date and time is improbable for leaving school (even if we lived in North Carolina, it would be a stretch), and since our distance financially prohibits us from attending this year, we need to come up with a solution.

This solution includes getting involved with teachers and other parents to include this event in school programs so each child will have a chance to learn about the Wright brothers and the story of flight. If you contact your child's school first, you might find they're already planning instructional events around this celebration. If so, ask them about the agenda and about the materials they plan to use. If the school hasn't planned any activities around this Centennial, ask them what you can do to help bring this event to your child's class. I've discovered many school budgets are in worse shape than my own personal budget. Therefore, some suggestions would include:

I'm sure you can come up with many more solutions that will help you and your child share this historic event. The point of this effort is simple - even if the results of our efforts are minimal, we still teach our children how to reach for - and dare - a dream.

Until Next Week,
Linda Goin

* On the other side of the coin, if you live along a coastline you know what bounties hurricanes can reap. The recent Atlantic hurricanes brought crab down to bargain basement prices because the storm pushed the crabs into Chesapeake Bay for easy harvesting. If you love pecans, Gulf Coast hurricanes usually yield bumper crops of pecans the year after a major storm.