Lessons from kids and seagulls

I saw two things today, both of which made me smile and taught me something. The first was the annual Ocracoke Child Care Hoop-a-Thon. The kids (from toddlers to 4 and 5 year olds) had a blast tossing basketballs (in a variety of sizes, as appropriate for their individual ages) into the hoops (in variety of heights, again as appropriate by age) in order to raise funds for the OCC program. The kids had fun regardless of the results - if they missed the basket, they simply tried again until they got the ball through the hoop. Some of them got the idea to do things a little differently on their follow up tries, and those were usually the ones who had more success. Just watching them made me smile.



After enjoying watching the kids, I went to Silver Lake for my daily ritual of touching salt water. I heard a repeated banging sound and looked around to find the source. It was a seagull with a clam shell, which he was repeatedly dropping on the roof of the houseboat on which he was standing, in an effort to get it open so he could have lunch. After several attempts, he picked up the shell and flew away. I wondered what he was going to do, so I watched him. He circled around, over the corner at the intersection of Hwy 12 and Silver Lake Drive, and then he dropped the clam shell on the road from a height of between 10 and 12 feet, by my estimate. Of course that was successful, and he feasted as a result. I laughed out loud, and had to commend him. Smart seagull!

So now you know about the smiling. Here's the lesson: if at first you don't succeed, by all means try again, but maybe use a different approach!