SIMPLE THINGS COLUMN: Close to home, cranes and Wendell Berry

My grandson is in kindergarten in Bend, Oregon. He does not attend Silver Rail Elementary School, where four children and one teacher were shot to death this week. His school is blocks away. 

Before I heard about the shooting, my grandson’s grandmother in Bend texted me that the shooting was not at his school, so I was saved from the anguish of wondering. But the horror of school shootings took a big step closer to my home. 

Steve Cook, the superintendent of the Bend-LaPine School District tasked with orchestrating the district’s response to this tragedy, was superintendent of the Coeur d’Alene School District from 2018-2021. 

Thirty-three children have died in 2026 from gun violence, and 63 people have been injured. It’s not a simple thing to fix this. It IS a simple thing to do something.

And something has been done on the schools’ end. Schools have more locks and more complicated procedures for entering buildings; some have police officers on-site who teach workshops on appropriate, desperate responses by teachers in the event of an active shooter. I know a teacher who keeps a bat near her desk as a weapon, and one teacher who has baseballs ready to throw at an active shooter. Students are instructed never to open the door for anyone, and some schools have metal detectors at the entrance. 

But little to nothing has been done about access to guns. It’s way past time to do something. And then reassess. And then do more. No one wants this to get any closer to home. 

A visit to the International Crane Foundation

On a recent trip to visit family in Wisconsin, my sister suggested we visit the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, a Central Wisconsin town.

I knew a bit about whooping cranes’ battle to be removed from the endangered species list. I didn’t know that there are 15 species of cranes, that the sarus crane, at almost six feet, is the tallest flying bird, that thousands of sandhill cranes stop on the Wisconsin River on their biannual migration, and that this center is the Global Headquarters for international efforts in Africa, Asia and North America to conserve crane habitats. 

In 1941, the whooping crane population was down to about 16 birds. Today, thanks to concerted efforts by the Crane Foundation, about 834 whooping cranes remain. 

All 15 crane species are on exhibit at the International Crane Foundation, in compatible pairs in spacious outdoor facilities with wetlands and grasslands, plus 90-foot-long artistic murals reflecting their natural habitat. 

Ornithology students George W. Archibald and Ronald Saucey founded the International Crane Foundation in 1973. Their mission, which they have pursued with great success, was “To protect and conserve the world’s 15 crane species and their wetland and grassland habitats.” At age 80, George Archibald is still actively involved in the Foundation. 

Wendell Berry passes on at age 92

The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

 of grief. I come into the presence of still water,

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time, 

I rest in the world's grace and am free.  

“The Peace of Wild Things” has been part of significant moments in my life, including my 1981 wedding on Hayden Lake and our last celebratory dinner in 2026 on our Main Salmon River trip. 

Wendell Berry (Aug. 5, 1934 – Aug. 31, 2026) was an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer closely associated with rural Kentucky.

On Jan. 28, 2015, he became the first living writer to be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. Critics and scholars have recognized Wendell Berry as a master of many literary genres. Still, whether he writes poetry, fiction, or essays, his message is the same: humans must learn to live in harmony with the earth's natural rhythms or perish.

One Amazing Thing About Our World

You can hear a blue whale's heartbeat from more than two miles away. The world's largest animal's heart weighs about 400 pounds — about the size of a small piano.

Quote About Life

“I try to have fun when I try new things. Not fear.” —  Rosalia, Spanish musician

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David Groth retired in 2016 after 37 years in elementary education. He spent his last 17 years, the favorite part of his career, teaching fifth grade and juggling at Sorensen Magnet School of the Arts and Humanities. He has lived in Coeur d’Alene since 1982 and has always appreciated the people, the geography, the climate, the rivers and lakes, and the simple things that make days special.