{"id":2671,"date":"2019-06-02T16:59:21","date_gmt":"2019-06-02T16:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nevilleronan.com\/blog\/?p=2671"},"modified":"2019-07-21T17:07:22","modified_gmt":"2019-07-21T17:07:22","slug":"remember-the-fraggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nevilleronan.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/02\/remember-the-fraggles\/","title":{"rendered":"Remember the Fraggles?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After ten weeks of behind-closed-doors creation, my\ndaughter, Morgan, gave me this gift. I have always been a Fraggle fan ever\nsince my daughters were little girls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To say I was gobsmacked with what she created would be an\nunderstatement; how her mind came up with such a beautiful idea and how her\nskills materialized it in such a wondrous fashion is a huge source of pride for\nme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the Fraggle-lovers among us, we might appreciate how she\ncaptured a lovely variation on what Jim Henson originally had in mind with his\nwonderful little band of creatures. There is a softness and warmth in the final\nart piece that embraces the wonderful world that came into our living-room in\nthe mid-eighties. The Fraggles (as in most of Jim Henson\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s creations) endeavored\nto help lay a foundation of values as it entertained our children. Much of\nthese values were about how we relate to each other and how we relate to the\nworld around us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That she created such a piece from recycled materials says a\nlot about Morgan. She crafter over 90% of this from little bits and pieces that\nlay around her, giving each piece another and arguably higher purpose. Bottle\ntops, beads, bits of waste paper, old containers \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u00a6 they were all reimagined and\nrefashioned into something beautiful. In fact the only real thing she bought of\nsubstance was the huge amount of glue that holds it all together \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u00a6 so no doubt\nshe is on a substance abuse watchlist somewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The central figure in Morgan\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s piece is herself as a Fraggle\nartist. She imagined herself into that world \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u00a6  a world that she has many\ntimes said to me that she would love to live in. In one of the pictures, it\nlooks like a collection of pencils, but they are in fact tiny little twigs from\nour yard that she pared and turned into imitation pencils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I guess the reason I wanted to us these images for this\nweek\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s email isn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t so much about how amazing my daughter is or how lucky I was\nto receive such a gift. Both are true, by the way, but I really wanted to use\nthe fact that this wonderful piece was made almost entirely of recycled\nmaterials. It is in stark contrast to how we have morphed into a disposal\nsociety that repairs nothing and reimagines even less. Our willingness to\ndiscard things that our grandparent\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s would have fixed and kept is a true\nreflection on consumerism at it\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s worst. The irony of the fact that I make my\nliving within the framework of a retail industry isn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t lost on me. But that\ndoesn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t mean that we have to just dump things that are dirty, dusty, or a bit\nworn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Environmental consciousness screams out when we hear stories\nlike those in the past few weeks, where Canada has been shipping out\nunapologetic amounts of trash to third world countries. Who even came up with\nthat idea and how did it fly past the censors? We will censor nudity on TV,\nlyrics in songs, and ideologies we don\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t agree with. But we will allow\nfirst-world countries to create so much trash that they ship it out to\nthird-world countries to deal with?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the saddest such story that might have caught your eye was\na couple of weeks ago. The American expedition to the ocean floor set a new\nworld record dive of almost seven miles \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u00a6 an incredible feat of human adventure\nand achievement. And when they reached the bottom of the ocean floor, what did\nthey find?  \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u00a6a  plastic bag. Can you imagine?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real beauty of the Fraggles was their delight and\ninnocence. The guiding principle of each Fraggle show was their moral compass\nand how it guided them through any situation that life would throw their way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps it\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s time to search for our own moral compass. We\ncould certainly find one \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u00a6 Down at Fraggle Rock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have a wonderful week ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n