Donna’s Day: Old-Fashioned Fun Junior Whirl • Did You Know? • Get the Picture?

KIDS &FAMILY

Donna’s Day: Creative Family Fun Old-Fashioned Fun Making Old-Fashioned Butter

By Donna Erickson

Signal Contributing Writer

As technology advances at a rapid rate, many of the traditional ways of doing things may be unknown to kids born in the 21st century. Why not take a break from our highspeed, techie lifestyle and experience with kids and grandkids some of the old-fashioned ways of playing and working?

Whether it’s cranking homemade ice cream on a warm evening after putting on a puppet show, playing bean bags, walking on stilts or stacking wood for a night around the fireplace, games and chores can be fun learning opportunities.

Simple techniques from earlier days can be found at living museums, history museums, libraries and in your own homes with treasured photos, antiques in the attic and stories from your kids’ great-grandparents.

To get started, here’s a way of taking back history with your family any time of year. Make your own butter!

Shake and Make Butter

Here’s the stuff you’ll need: ‰ 1 empty, small clean jar with a lid, such as a baby-food or jam jar ‰ heavy whipping cream ‰ muffin, biscuit or cracker ‰ salt (optional)

Now, here’s the fun:

Pour the cream into the jar, leaving space at the top. Screw the lid on tightly. Show your child how to hold the jar in both hands and shake, shake, shake.

It’s great exercise, and you may notice your child might run out of steam. That’s the time to pass it on to someone else to continue the shaking. Eventually, chunks of butter will form.

Spoon out the chunks into a bowl

Five-year-old Zach attempts walking on stilts with help from his mom. and add a few sprinkles of salt, if you wish. Spread the butter on a warm muffin, biscuit or cracker, and talk about life in an earlier time when butter didn’t magically appear on the grocery store’s dairy shelf.

Donna Erickson’s award-winning series “Donna’s Day” is airing on public television nationwide. To find more of her creative family recipes and activities, visit www.donnasday.com and link to the Donna’s Day Facebook fan page. Her latest book is “Donna Erickson’s Fabulous Funstuff for Families.”  © 2022 Donna Erickson

Distributed by King Features Synd.

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SOLUTIONS

Opinion Unless otherwise stated, the views and opinions expressed are those of the respective authors and do not necessarily represent the views of The Signal.

READER LETTERS

Civility Matters

During these times in America, a display of positive bipartisan interaction between members of both major political parties provides an opportunity to demonstrate a unified enjoyment during the annual House of Representatives baseball game. I am a blinded U.S. military veteran who depends on observations of others for such events. During the game earlier this month, news media reported use of an obscene hand gesture by a congresswoman of one political party during the game toward the opposing party’s dugout. Regardless of any possible inciting issues, such gesturing sets a terrible example for our children and grandchildren when watching efforts at congressional collegiality during one of America’s favorite pastimes. I submitted my concerns about this to the House Committee on Ethics. Hopefully an appropriate response by this committee would keep such behaviors absent among members of Congress.

As a former chief learning officer for one of the Veterans Administration’s largest health care systems, my fellow managers and I were required to implement action plans to assure civility among our 5,000 employees. The VA selected a research-based publication from Johns Hopkins University, “Choosing Civility,” an outcome of JHU’s Civility Project. VA-wide distribution of this book was intended to provide managers a real-life tool to help implement the study’s 25 rules of considerate conduct.

As a result of this extensive look at civility, JHU researchers describe civility as simply “RESPECT IN ACTION.” Whatever civility is, JHU researchers in writing about their 25 rules for civil behavior found four guiding points in summarizing each of the rules: 1) courtesy, 2) politeness, 3) good manners, and 4) elements in the realm of ethics. Clearly, ethical behaviors (e.g., morality) arise from our life and/or faith-based experiences.

Whether in a baseball game, productive political debate (so badly needed), or in interactions among all Americans, choosing civility is a necessary ingredient for preserving America’s cherished values and history. JHU’s 25 rules could prove useful today for politicians and all Americans as we navigate the troubled waters of political rancor. Civility does matter!

Larry Bustetter Valencia

Explain the Change

Re: Arthur Saginian, letters, Aug. 10. Arthur, 37 years ago I was just like you in my opinion of Christians. I am not preaching to you but I want to tell you what happened to me. I was what you would probably call a bar person. For about 30 years I went to bars probably four nights a week, give or take.

One morning I went to a church and the pastor asked me what I thought about Jesus. I told him what I believed, that Jesus walked this Earth and did the things told of Him, that he was killed on a cross and rose from the dead. I'm not even sure how I knew all this other than my grandma sang Jesus songs and took me to church as a child. The pastor, after I answered his question, asked if I had ever asked Jesus to be lord of my life. I replied, “No, should I?” We then prayed what I now know as the sinner’s prayer. My habit of going to bars disappeared from my life, with no effort on my part. It just became not me anymore. You say faith is unprovable. How, then, did this change happen?

I could carry on with a lot of opinions, but what really matters to those in your bell-shaped curve is, what do any of them, or you for that matter, believe about Jesus? David Smith Canyon Country

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ETHICALLY SPEAKING

Opportunity and Integrity

Is it just me or are scandals becoming all too prevalent? Is anyone else noticing that almost daily we read or hear about some famous person being caught in a web of improprieties, peccadilloes, or actual criminal activity?

It is happening everywhere from politics and commerce, to professional athletics and the worlds of education, medicine and technology. But what is most disheartening to me is that unethical behavior and disgrace have become particularly rampant in my world of all things church and clergy. Pastors around the country are being exposed for their roles in scandals ranging from child abuse, moral perversion and fraud, to adultery, embezzlement and even murder.

And while some attribute the steady stream of failure porn to the ascendancy of social media, I have another explanation. I think our society’s integrity quotient has eroded significantly over the past couple decades. I think we are seeing a precipitous escalation in moral failure because we are too often ready to shave the edges off our integrity to take advantage of certain opportunities.

I may be wrong but I do believe most everyone has price. That is, at some point, if the selfish desires are strong enough, and the potential reward is big enough, I think most people will cut some corners, tell some lies, take undue advantage, and look the other way to do the deed, make the deal and reap the benefits.

If that is true, or mostly true, or even slightly true, then we all need to ask ourselves: What’s my integrity quotient? What would it take for me to reprogram my conscience, adopt a more “progressive” ethic and feel good about acting badly?

Here’s my view. We all think of ourselves as good people. We know right from wrong, especially when someone else is watching. But we also know we have the ability to rationalize wrong as not being all that bad, especially if we’re fairly sure no one will know. Lastly, we all think we have a line that we’d never cross. We may engage in small indiscretions, but at a certain point we believe we can say “no” and remain within the confines of our ethical, moral belief system. So again, if that is true, or mostly true, then how do we explain the fact that good people seem to shatter their ethical boundaries at an alarming rate even as they acknowledge when caught that they never intended to let it go that far?

Here’s my answer: When the allure of a pleasurable or profitable opportunity becomes stronger than the commitment to personal integrity, the result will be ethical failure. It almost always progresses incrementally. Small concessions set the precedent for greater indiscretions that sear the conscience, allowing for greater, more harmful ethical erosion.

Then another disastrous element enters the equation. The idea that some enterprise is “too big to fail” will often stifle the voices of those who know about the small ethical lapses that have occurred lest a great business or prestigious ministry be brought down. After all, look at all the good they’re doing!

What then, should we do? First of all, we must look to ourselves and be constantly strengthening our ethical beliefs and moral behavior. Lock them down, and rehearse the benefit of integrity above all. Then, order your life so that, should a great opportunity present itself, you’ll be able to push it through your integrity grid before you fantasize about the reward.

I thoroughly believe wrong is wrong, regardless of the promised pot of gold at the end of unethical behavior. At the end of the day, it is better to lay your head on your pillow with your integrity both up to date and intact than to know you’re now living with a person who, if the price is right, will join the ranks of the ethically unreliable.

Local resident David Hegg is senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church. “Ethically

Speaking” appears Sundays. 