Circle ’round for for a brief, heart-warming, and perhaps eerily prophetic story from my childhood. (And read till the end–there’s a treat.)
In 1988, my town’s annual Earth Day poster contest held a special prize: The winning design was to be printed on T-shirts that would be distributed to students at the Sandwich Central Elementary School and available for sale to parents and other adults in the community. There I was, a young girl armed with passion for the earth, appreciation for the animals and plants that live on it, a full box of markers, and a blank sheet of paper. My message was simple: Keep Earth Alive: RECYCLE. The words wrapped around a drawing of the earth, each continent and ocean playing host to an animal native to its land or water. I remember drawing the antlers of a moose in North America, the oversize beak of a toucan in South America, a humpback whale in the Atlantic… At top right is the newspaper clipping my mom saved to commemorate the event of my winning the contest–my two sisters are with me showing off the T-shirts. Though the poster, which I had so carefully colored in, was to be printed in black and white, the T-shirts, at least, ranged in color. My sisters each chose green and blue T-shirts, respectively, while my dad ordered the vibrant pink T-shirt shown here. He wore it for many years, and it bears a few ink stains–the requisite mark of an art teacher.
In the spirit of Earth Day contests, here’s one for you: Before midnight tonight, let us know in the comments what you’re doing to celebrate Earth Day, and be automatically entered to win a signed copy of Generation T: Beyond Fashion. Here’s where it gets interesting: Five finalists will be drawn at random and announced on the site tomorrow, April 23, 2011 at noon EST. A final challenge will be issued and the first of the finalists to correctly answer the trivia question posed is the winner! (Hint: Having a copy of Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-shirt on hand for reference will be infinitely helpful.)
