Welcome to Circle!

by Bill Hornung

Caution: Slow-Moving Might Be Healthy

Like me, I'm sure many of you have often pondered the mysteries of slow-moving things.

As an example, why does Donald Trump's hair barely stir even when he's walking briskly?

Why doesn't the common fast-food French fry start disintegrating when left untouched for months? A fry made from a fresh potato at home will get moldy in a week or so (try it sometime... it's fun to watch the fuzz grow).

Stranger yet, the Lotto has been incredibly slow in sending me a really big check.

And then there's my son, Nick. He's 10 and could be mistaken for a piece of modern art (he wears odd colors, sits in strange positions and remains stationary for long periods). We don't place him outside because we're afraid he'll attract pigeons.

Nick is far from lazy. He just doesn't see what the fuss is all about in terms of hustling from here to there. The lack of shifting has actually served him well in school because teachers can always find him in his seat. Frozen. But ready to answer.

Put some cork on him and he'd be the perfect classroom bulletin board.

Fortunately, he's very healthy. His body has adapted to his leisurely lifestyle — although moss is starting to grow on his north side (a helpful characteristic when we need to get our bearings).

Nick has always ran (or, rather, walked) at his own pace no matter how hard we've tried to speed him up. He never crawled as a baby preferring to scoot along the floor while sitting. And scooting didn't happen unless we placed him on a very steep angle.

He's happily motionless. But his static nature reminded me of one very important thing. You can see, hear and feel a lot more things if you pause. Take a break. Look around.

Of course, Nick has gone way beyond the "stop and smell the roses" idea. He's pretty much become the smelly flower himself. But in doing so he has a keen sense for the smallest details that surround him unlike anyone I know.

This all hit me about a month ago when Nick asked me to attend his Kids Korps meeting after school to help make flyers for a fundraising event. I've been involved in many nonprofit groups over the years and have written about dozens of others, but I couldn't recall anything about Kids Korps when I agreed to help out.

Well, we made the posters. The kids went out over the next few weeks and promoted their fundraiser (a simple gathering of change from classmates and parents). Amazingly, these elementary school kids raised $1,200 to help ship badly needed supplies to the Pacific region devastated by the recent tsunami.

I congratulated Nick on a job well done, and promptly forgot about Kids Korps again until I received the group's newsletter in the mail.

To my embarrassment, I learned that the Kids Korps headquarters are just a few miles from our home. It's grown rapidly to 75 chapters scattered across four states since its beginning in 1995.

Kids Korps' mission is to instill the importance of community service among school-aged children by educating its members about the causes of social issues and encouraging hands-on volunteerism. Chapters help out at day care centers for children or seniors, restore public parks, assist with Meals on Wheels, build houses with Habitat for Humanity and host leadership training classes.

Kids Korps' rapid success has even attracted the likes of TV host Larry King and entertainer Wayne Newton to its annual fundraising event each year. The event has been staged for the last five years near here — practically in my own backyard.

And I never stopped to notice. But Nick did.

Watch for the Next Issue of Circle! on June 7