Yesterday, I took a long lunch and joined more than a million others Downtown for a parade honoring the San Francisco Giants baseball team that beat the Texas Rangers to win the World Series. I wasn’t there alone, however; I, like many others, pulled my kids out of school to join the throngs of screaming fans. Now, why would I, one who is known for dismissing team sports, choose such an event over my kids’ education, especially since I value learning and knowledge as much as I shun sports?
Even my kids’ recent and very sudden enthusiasm for baseball wouldn’t have been enough to trump going to school, normally. And yet, I took them with me, completely skipping school for the day. For me, it was because I wanted them to experience something on a scale they would never see in class. It was something I felt several decades ago at a similar event held for the city’s football team after winning the Super Bowl several years in a row. It was a feeling I encountered at San Francisco’s Polo Field after Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead passed away.
It was the feeling of massive numbers of disparate people coming together to share great joy or great pain. Callahan’s Law, the Law of Conservation of Pain and Joy, says that “Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased—thus do we refute entropy.” This is indeed true and the chance to experience the effect on such a grand scale was not to be missed.
Mind you, I would not have taken my kids were they at all behind in their studies but both are excellent students and, in at least one case, the rumour is that their teacher was downtown as well. I felt that, for my kids, the experience was well worth the missed class time.
Would you do the same? Would you take your kids out of school for a civic celebration? Did you?
Tags: baseball, Education, festivals, giants, mlb, parades, san francisco, school, sports, world series
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Of course I would. I’m a baseball fan but even if I weren’t there are some one of a kind occasions which shouldn’t be missed. Television just isn’t the same and I envied the crowds in the city while I was watching at home.
For that one day, the city came together in a peaceful celebration.
I’d have to think long and hard though before I pulled them out to go celebrate the Yankees.