December already. Months fly by. Back in the early 1970s when I was studying Russian at the University of Wyoming, my classmates and I made a joke of learning “how time flies when you’re having fun.” Kak brемя летит, когда тебе весело! I persevered for a second year, actually enjoying the rigor of the language, until I decided to graduate in three years instead of four by switching my major to French. Not because it was any easier—reading French Literature and writing papers in French—but because I could skip several classes to advance more quickly, having spoken the language when I was young, however childlike my efforts. So, I graduated from university one week and married two weeks later. My future father-in-law had a hand in my decision to complete my degree work, predicting I would likely not finish if newly married. I suspect he was correct. He usually was. But this is no composition on Russian, or French, or marrying at twenty-one. . . .

Cassandra was a seer, one who sees what others cannot. Perceived by others as touched with madness after foreseeing the Greek invasion that finally destroyed Troy, her fears dismissed as insanity, she could only watch in horror as the rough brutality ensued. Cassandras abound today and are being summarily ignored. Prophets warn us still. Today I read that in Wyoming “they” are getting ready to use a “breakthrough” herbicide against cheatgrass, an invasive species that cows won’t eat. I am concerned about “miracle solutions” that could jeopardize future prairie ecosystems. A Tordon incident in 2013 ended with tragic results as several cottonwoods on the Belle Fourche riverside perished, their now whitish skeletal limbs lifted, like arms in prayer.

Kak brемя летит, когда тебе весело! Paying attention, being mindful, pausing thoughtfully before speaking, living from one’s values—shared or not—and addressing that which hangs in the proverbial balance is my aim: our children’s futures and their children’s. The sophomoric idea of “having fun” can, and has become, an end-all in our culture. The Pied Piper’s tune may have sounded lighthearted as he grimly played for the children of Hamelin. The German folktale, myths, and fairy tales are the stories wired to our consciousness, our unconscious, and our neurology. We dismiss them at our peril. From Greeks myths to Indigenous stories, the countless tales we grow up with (seemingly less so today) inform our hearts and minds and perform as object lessons. We are busily ignoring every last one of them.

Who pays for unintended consequences but our children? In the end, it’s about money, isn’t it? In Saint Exupery’s classic, The Little Prince, who is to be avoided but L’homme d’affaires, or the Business Man, forever counting his gold pieces on a lonely planet, inhabited by one. Recall the Pied Piper was not paid his promised fee for leading the rat infestation away from Hamelin, and so he piped the town’s children into a mountain, never to be seen again.

Time flies when we’re having fun. Even Time fears the feckless nature.