TALKING TRASH: `CHEERIO' TO BOXES -- HAPPY CRUNCHING!

Kudos to the public works department for broadening the scope of our city's recycling efforts, by adding light-weight (gray) cardboard to our list of collectibles! It causes me to pause and reflect on years of raising our four children on their favorite "fast food" breakfasts of cereal and milk. Even though it lacks imagination, it was quick and nutritious when you're mobilizing six people out of the house between 6:45 and 7:15 a.m., five out of seven mornings per week! And, of course, what would Saturday morning cartoons be without an argument over who got to finish off which kind of cereal? Sunday mornings we all savored pancakes/waffles or bacon and eggs, unless of course we decided to go to early church -- then guess what we'd have? Or, when those "fancy foods" went up in cost, I'd throw in oatmeal or cream of wheat. Our kids were thoroughly fiber-filled, fortified and riboflavined! We could only afford fresh fruit in-season or when grandparents would come for a visit and buy it.

Back to boxes! The genius of marketing cereal is not to be denied. Take four small children to the store and allow them to choose their favorite cereal each week -- you KNOW what their choices will be. They look for the kind that have favorite movie or TV characters on them, or marshmallow puffs inside, games on the back, or "FREE INSIDE" plastered on the packaging. While Mom is trying to sway them to the more nutritious, sugar-less little "O"s and squares, they're looking for entertainment, cavities and quick, sugar highs. Standing in the cereal aisles of stores across Missouri, our children experienced many lessons in decision-making, problem-solving, negotiating, price-comparing and good nutrition. Quite an educational endeavor I'd say. If I would have taken more time, or had more energy, I would have expanded the whole concept of "Better Breakfasting." For now, I'll just watch as they go through the process of parenting and enjoy seeing how they improve on the old family system.

A little math inserted here seems to be a timely topic when talking about recycling. Consuming four to six boxes of cereal per week for one year equals (208-312) boxes! Take these numbers times (12) solid years of four children eating cereal and you have rather large astronomical figures of (2,496) to (3,744) boxes per year to recycle. ONE FAMILY. Egads! One more multiplication to do. Solve to find the unknown quantity (X) of families eating the same way and WOW! Just one HUGE reason to begin recycling!

Then consider restaurants, retirement homes and child-care facilities and the number of boxes of cereal that they go through each week. TRIPLE WOW!!! While we're talkin' gray cardboard here, we must mention other sources such as rice, pastas, baking soda, gelatin, cookie, cracker, gift boxes, cosmetic containers and paper product cylinders -- the list goes on!

Parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, and significant others -- as I see it, we and our children are the front-line attack teams in the war we MUST wage to save our environment! Support troops must be enlisted throughout our communities! Any establishment serving food to the masses needs to start recycling if it hasn't already. Some schools have a recycling day each month -- what a wonderful community contribution! Can you imagine once a week!? PTA's could create a "Trash Patrol" and children could even be awarded an "A" each day that they contributed, for good citizenship. That may be the only "A" that some children can achieve -- what a positive for them and for all of us!

Children thrive on contests and competition. Won't someone out there take on the challenge? A contest in which everyone wins and no one can lose because ALL have contributed to a greater good.

Before you break down those cereal boxes though, be sure to REUSE them. We're talking Beginning Reading and number recognition -- those ABC's and 123's that help build the foundation for formal learning. I've even overheard children having conversations with elves on shelves, athletes and Cinderella. Give a toddler a box and a wooden spoon and your helping him develop a sense of rhythm; or stack them up and watch them delight in knocking them down. Consider the dawning of a New Day in BOXING -- no violence here -- no ears bitten just bite-sized bits of bran, bettering our bodies and boxes being bent to benefit our bins(recycling)! "B" a good citizen! "B" involved!

Care to share an idea with us? Just send it in to "Ms. Kaye," Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63701.