Day 57 - Bunny

Image by Raleene, via Flickr

While I was one of about 40 volunteers in New Jersey with the Christian Neighborhood Summer Program during the summer of 1968, there were several local high school students assigned to work with us. They were part of the Job Corps, a program administered by the United States Department of Labor that offers free-of-charge education and vocational training to youth ages 16 to 24. Three high school students were assigned to work at the church where I worked. One of the three, Bernice, Bunny for short, worked with me.

One of the first things I learned from Bunny and the other two young women was the vast differences in the versions of English we all spoke. For example, in my dialect, the two words berry and bury and the name Barry are pronounced the same. But in New Jersey, those three words have completely different vowels. Berry rhymes with very. Bury rhymes with jury. And the first vowel in Barry is completely foreign to me. It requires my jaw dropped lower when speaking the name than for any other word. Other names rhyme with it: Cary, Gary, Harry, Larry, and Mary, but not Jerry, Kerry, Perry, Sherry, or Terry.

Another lesson I learned from Bunny and the others was the importance of context. I was surprised by all the litter I saw on the streets in New Jersey, so I thought it would be fun, even instructive, to set up a game that would both clean up the immediate neighborhood and make a point about the importance of keeping litter off the street. So I constructed a scavenger hunt. I made four lists of items that could be found on the street but that didn't belong there: in other words, litter. I broke my class into four groups, gave each one a list and sent them on their way to collect the items.

After about 15 minutes, all four teams were back with their bags full of litter. I was feeling rather smug as I said that they didn't have to go very far to find the items on the list, did they. I saw Bunny's face when I said that and her expression was curious. One of the boys responded that I was wrong. They had to go all the way to the end of the block to find the gum wrapper. At that, I saw Bunny nod her head slightly.

Next I had the kids draw a picture of their houses. When they were done, I told them to glue what they had collected on their pictures. Most of them just did what I told them. But one boy got it. He looked up at me and said he didn't want to do that because it would make his house ugly. Then he did something that made my heart sing. He drew a garbage can in the corner of the picture and he pasted all his litter on the can.

Bunny also taught me how to cross streets in New Jersey. Most important was not to wait at the corner for the light to change. It was important to look both directions - no all four directions - and if it was clear, to go.

Bunny thought it was ironic that she was younger than I was, but she knew more than I did about how to get around. The next summer I was able to reverse things. Bunny came to Minnesota for a week in August. And that time I was the teacher. I kept her from crossing the street against the lights, even though there were no cars coming. I reminded her not to throw things onto the street. And I translated when our funny Minnesota accents confused her.