“Why can’t we pet him?” my nephew John asked.
The man who’s now 22 was then an 8-year-old boy, standing at a railing around Snooty the manatee’s pool at a Bradenton aquarium.
John would return year after year, visiting Anna Maria Island from Grayslake, Illinois, for family vacations and he came to understand why a boy can’t pet a manatee.
He and his sister, Jackie, and their cousin Pippa had the good fortune of weeklong stays with the extended family in an island rental before hectic schedules disrupted the tradition. Their younger cousins Georgie and Gavin didn’t experience those good times, those inspiring times.
John is now a Purdue University grad and working his first real job. Jackie is a sophomore at Loyola University in New Orleans, pursuing a major in environmental studies. And Pip is a teen with a middle-school life.
I know they learned to respect nature during their stays on Anna Maria Island and visits to wild places like Myakka River State Park.
They encountered alligators — and ran.
They celebrated sightings of dolphins and manatees and hoped every holiday to see a shark.
They turned for a week from selfie photography to shooting seascapes and landscapes.
They laughed at diving pelicans and waddling royal terns.
Through trial and error, they understood how wind carries their kites from the beach.
They figured out how to catch anoles and also learned a first rule of being in nature — look, don’t touch.
And they eavesdropped on their wine-sipping grownups searching for a green flash at sunset.
For all that those kids experienced in our natural spaces on their Thanksgiving holidays, I’m thankful.
I’m also thankful for the people who provided guidance and instruction to young vacationers on AMI, especially my niblings.
Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch’s Suzi Fox introduced the kids to the ways of sea turtles.
They learned from Keep Manatee Beautiful volunteers about fun activities like sand-sculpting but also the necessity of recycling and coastal cleanups.
They spent time on the old Anna Maria City Pier, where bait shop worker Jesus Rosario became a pal, talking with them about the way fish move and the heroics of Roberto Clemente.
At the FISH Preserve, they learned from a couple of Cortezians that sweet tea makes everything better, including heat and humidity and the sting of no-see-ums and mosquitoes.
And at Island Gallery West, painters provided them lessons in capturing the colors of the sky and water and a sculptor talked about clay and earth.
Yes, so thankful.
Happy Thanksgiving.