Spur of the Moment Read Online Free PDF

about how Americans bought food even when it was out of season, so they could have the fruits and vegetables they liked all year long, which led to produce that was shipped from so far away that to get here in one piece, it had to be picked at the wrong time and plugged up with chemicals, which resulted in tomatoes and apples that tasted like red-colored sawdust. He said that the average food Americans bought at the supermarket had to travel 1400 miles, causing a colossal expenditure of fossil fuels. He reminded them of the lesson they’d had earlier on the ozone layer, and the damage wrought by car emissions as well as the fact that the amount of oil available on the planet was finite, and by some estimates would be gone by as early as 2025. While they were discussing the ozone layer, he also said that one of the worst things for the ozone was the gaseous emissions of cattle. “Their flatulence,” he’d added, which made the class giggle. He’d pointed out to his students that to produce one pound of beef, ten pounds of grains were required. He said that if everyone ate a vegetarian diet, no one on the face of the earth would have to go hungry.
    The solution to these problems was to shop locally, eat less meat, and, if possible, grow some of your food yourself. He talked about his own small garden, and how amazing the food tasted, and how rewarding it was to share the food with friends when it was fresh and in season.
    â€œSir, I in no way try to influence the eating habits of my students. I just believe in telling them the facts and letting them make informed choices,” Jason said to the cattle rancher father.
    â€œYou don’t let an impressionable child make choices on his own. You think you hand a twelve year old the keys to a car and hope they make a good decision?”
    â€œSir?” Jason wasn’t clear how this analogy in any way pertained to the discussion they were having. Normally Jason was calm and laid-back, which was part of the reason his students loved him. That, and he cracked them up regularly. In the classroom, humor came naturally to him. The downside to being an improv-er was when people found out that he did improv, they inevitably demanded that he say something amusing to them, and he was no good at being funny when ordered to. He wished he could bring some levity to the current debacle he found himself in, but he couldn’t see anything funny about it.
    â€œI’m going to the school board on this, I’m going to the superintendent, I’m going to the newspapers. I don’t send my daughter to school so she can get filled up with a bunch of communist malarkey.” The cattle rancher shook his thick finger in Jason’s face.
    The enormous man stood up, put his cowboy hat on, and turned his waving finger toward the principal. “Don’t think you’ve heard the last you’re going to hear from me.”
    The man stormed out, and Jason looked at the principal. Thanks for sticking up for me.
    The principal was a thin, sickly looking, watery-eyed man who hoped for nothing more than to quietly get to retirement age and get away from the students who scared him more and more every year.
    â€œSo what’s going to happen?” Jason asked. “Are there going to be repercussions from this? I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong.”
    â€œI don’t know what’s going to happen, Jason, I really don’t. In the meantime, just tone it down.”
    â€œTone it down? I’m just telling the kids the way it is.”
    â€œYou’re supposed to be teaching biology, not all this political nonsense.”
    Political? He wasn’t being political; just honest.
    â€œI’m not going to lose my job over this, am I?”
    The principal just shrugged helplessly.
    Jason left the principal’s office and returned to his own tiny office. He had twenty minutes to calm down before he had to teach his next class. This was