backpacks could ease heavy load of refug ees..

“some food for thought, from today's columbus dispatch....


My sons, heading off to school, resemble refugees trudging wearily with every possession in tow.

Refugees, of course, don't tote trumpet cases or soccer bags or backpacks bulging with algebra books and permission slips.

I never faced such a heavy burden, even though my instrument was the bassoon.

Backpacks were rare 25 years ago. I had a large, metal-frame pack for camping, but I'd never have dreamed that a mere trip to and from school could involve the kind of planning and toting required for an overnight trapping expedition to the Big Darby.

Yet that is what Joe and Mike face -- without even the promise of valuable muskrat pelts at the end of the day. They suffer in silence, assuming, perhaps, that the burdens of the 21st- century student are eternal and immutable.

I am less stoic about my own burgeoning materials- management crisis.

My house, huge by my grandparents' standards, is full to overflowing, as are the houses of everyone I know.

American society has become so wealthy, so materialistic, that whole stores devoted to "closet solutions'' thrive.

Still, I wish for my grandchildren a standard of living that makes America in 2001 look like Afghanistan in, well, 2001. But they're going to need bigger closets.

I handle my overflow by loading up the old junker every couple of years and driving to Volunteers of America, where I donate the whole package, car and all.

The resulting self-righteous feeling nicely complements my tax write-off.

I gained a more satisfying feeling when I gave to the Red Cross to help the terror victims in New York and Washington. But America is a rich society, and there was never any doubt that Americans would take care of their own.

More daunting, for Americans who really want to make the world a better place, is the plight of the terrorists' other victims, the Afghan refugees fleeing though the mountains and passes and rough places of central Asia.

For them, "materials management'' is no trivial matter.

Families fleeing from bombs and terror, scrambling at a moment's notice from hellhole to hellhole, must carry the precious scraps of clothing or food that might keep body and soul together for another day.

My family pondered their plight one recent morning while loading up the day's backpacks and totes and gym bags.

We had all been moved by photos of refugees struggling with full arms, children desperately clinging to the hem of parents' shawls or cloaks. And we had noticed how a backpack leaves arms free for reassuring hugs.

And so our family's small idea to change the world: Backpacks for Refugees.

Backpacks, we figure, could be dropped from a plane without risk of damage, unlike food or medicine. And backpacks probably wouldn't be stolen by soldiers and despots.

Now we just need an organization to take up the cause.

A good old American backpack won't stop the bombs, or feed a village, or end an epidemic.

But it might help ease the burden of a refugee, stumbling toward a frightening, unknowable future, and let her hold a child's hand along the way.

Steve Stephens is a Columbus Dispatch Metro columnist. He can be reached at 614- 461-5201 or by e-mail.

sstephens@dispatch.com”

“The guys from Franklin's expedition to find the Northwest Passage were draggin' their furniture along, but the theory is that they got too much 'Led for the Head,' as it were, from the lead solder in their canned pemmican and lost their freakin' minds.”

“Great idea gonzo! I have serveral old packs just gathering dust in a closet.”

“I'm sure that we all have some extra packs that we could give up. This is the best idea I've heard in a long time. Might be a little too late, though...”

“I got a couple of extra packs that are taking up room. Any idea who I'm supposed to get them to?”