It reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit today, here in my little corner of the world.  My kind of weather!  Warm-ish.  As I was walking uptown at high noon, I started noticing little tiny oases, scattered about here and there.

It always amazes me to see these little green acres that manage to sprout up wherever they are able.  This one situated in the craggiest of places, yet it manages to grow, and thrive.  Well, maybe not thrive, but certainly to take root, and burgeon.

I’ve seen this phenomena so many times in my life.  It reminds me of when I was a kid, and my Mom let me save money to buy Sea Monkeys.  They were advertised in the back of some magazine I had gotten my hands on.  Sea Monkeys. Magical, wonderful, glorious little primates of the ocean.  My imagination swirled.  All I had to do was add water.  I was in.

I could barely contain myself when they arrived in the mail.  I did a happy dance, right there on the front porch of our home on Bruce Avenue.  The neighbors watched.  (See… it started WAY back then.)

My Sea Monkeys grew out of nothing.  Powder.  Dust…  and all I did was add that prescribed water.  Viola’!  Magnificent Sea  Monkeys, swimming about happily in that glass pitcher.  Again, I did a happy dance.

As it turns out….they didn’t live very long…. but I named a bunch of them.  I called one Lester.   I remember him.  He looked a lot like all the other Sea Monkeys.  But I knew the difference.  He lived the very longest.

So, what really brought all of this to mind?  Today is a bit of an Oasis Day in history.  On this day, in 1862… slavery was banned in all U.S Territories.  About 100 years later, on this same date, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed.  Amid all the heat, the rocks & hard places… the cragginess of it all…. things were taking root and growing.  Good things.   Just like Lester, I hope they live a long, long time.