Editorial

After a smoky and dry summer and a year of pandemic shutdowns, we are (mostly) sending our kids back to school. But we’re not exactly sure what we are teaching them. We have mixed lessons about wearing a facial mask. Maybe they help limit the spread of coronavirus droplets, but do mandated masks violate our personal freedoms? At the same time, there’s an ironclad prohibition that no student may walk into a school barefooted. What’s the lesson here? Is it that risking the spread of a deadly virus is less serious than exposing one’s toes?

August is usually a broiling time of year, but as I write this it’s gray and kind of drizzly outside; a welcome relief for all of us concerned with fires and drought. Fires and drought: It sounds like some biblical warning of imminent disaster. In truth, our world does seem to feel more and more like we’re living in perilous times. The likelihood of those natural disasters happening to us in any given year has grown to be an accepted reality, living here in all this splendor.

Editor's note: This letter was written to Santa on Dec. 16, 2019 and was sent in to the Reveille. The writer, Cooper, wrote it at nine years old when he was in third grade.

As part of our letters section this week, the Tribune is publishing letters from students at The Alexander Valley School about what they’re thankful for this year.