The real Gary
Discovering a land snail
Like just about every little kid I run into, my granddaughter is absolutely in love with the characters of the SpongeBob show. So when were were hiking through the woods in back of my house and looking for signs of spring, Stasia had no trouble whatsoever instantly identifying "Gary"—a pet sea snail in the cartoon—gleaming white in the leaf litter. "But where is he?" she asked, as she examined the curving inside of the shell. I explained that he had probably been eaten, a fate she thought was just not right. She's now old enough to have started thinking about the concept of death, and she asks a lot of questions about life's end and beyond. This was, she realized, not the real Gary. He lived on, and we'd no doubt see him soon on TV.