Carol Cullar

It begins when I was three and shinnied up the cottonwood tree to get on top of the chicken shed because I wanted to see what the world looked like from there. I wanted to know things, find the answer, solve the riddle, and find out why. I feel that drive is the greatest gift given me by my parents -- an insatiable sense of curiosity. I wanted to see and know and understand it ALL from the moment I could toddle. And will continue to operate under that premise . . . until I can only toddle!

I grew up on a small farm right on the Texas border up in the Panhandle. We played outdoors from dawn to dusk and only went inside when the weather was bad. I spent countless hours observing the red ant bed in the front yard. We were connected to the land and the seasons and the animals in some ineffable way that made me feel at home in nature.

I remember a little girl who came to play regularly at Grandmother Darnell's house down the road from us. She followed the grown-ups around and made a pest of herself with the refrain: "How come, Mz. Darnell? How come?" I'll go to my grave with that refrain pulsing in my blood. I am fascinated by the natural world. How the ants order their society, what causes the monarch butterflies to return to the same region in Mexico for thousands of years even though their parents never saw the place and only their grandparents have ever been there? So from that need to know, springs my interest in the species with which we share this small space on earth and in the flowers and plants around us.

Harnessed to this thirst for understanding is the great pleasure of watching others catch fire from new ideas. Teaching was always such fun! I taught high school art for 18 years, but I also taught Earth Science for another two here in Eagle Pass.

Today I am concerned when I see children losing touch with the out of doors. If they are outside, it is in a yard or a park or a playing field. Nature is too frequently tamed. I would wish that every child could know the tranquility and impetus to imagination that an hour of watching a red ant colony can bring. I wish every child could experience that sense of wonder just waiting for them in a pond full of tadpoles or in the hatching of a chick, the emergence of a monarch butterfly from its chrysalis, or the interconnectedness of the seasons and the migrations of the birds and insects through this stark, but beautiful land.