👞👟 TREE 490: Something really little

Today’s post is one paragraph from the Esquire profile that inspired the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. I highly recommend both. So you know, it contains a brief description of a school shooting, but that’s not the point I hope you’ll think about.

On December 1, 1997… a boy, no longer little, told his friends to watch out, that he was going to do something “really big” the next day at school, and the next day at school he took his gun and his ammo and his earplugs and shot eight classmates who had clustered for a prayer meeting. Three died, and they were still children, almost. The shootings took place in West Paducah, Kentucky, and when Mister Rogers heard about them, he said, “Oh, wouldn't the world be a different place if he had said, ‘I’m going to do something really little tomorrow,’” and he decided to dedicate a week of the Neighborhood to the theme “Little and Big”. He wanted to tell children that what starts out little can sometimes become big, and so they could devote themselves to little dreams without feeling bad about them.

Christine and I saw a photo from the World Cup on the BBC website that reminded us of a Renaissance painting. She said I should ask an AI to do something with that, so I asked Midjourney for a Rembrandt painting of a football match.

Sometimes Canadians do the best American music (Spotify).

I’m going to do something really little today.
Jeff