Meet Don Knaack...The Junkman

You are probably wondering why I'm posting so much after such a long silence, but this has been a long time coming. And I don't expect it to slow down much anytime soon! I thought I would give you all a sneak peek at who we are working on bringing to Memphis for children's camps and a concert: Donald Knaack aka The Junkman. His music is all percussion with a distinct world beat sound. Please look at his website to find out all about this fantastic musician who has a passion for educating children in the art of making music and saving the environment.

I wanted to share with you a story about Lilly, my 3 year old, and her experience with The Junkman. I'll preface this by saying that working on this project has forced me to be more environmentally concious, and although I am far from being the model recycler, I am getting much better. While listening to his CD "Junk Music 2" tonight on a late night trip to the grocery store, Lilly wanted to look at the CD cover that had "trash" all over it. She examined it for at least 15 minutes. When I was getting her out of the car, she still had the cover in her hands and asked "What's this?" I explained the cover to her...in simple terms...by saying, "all of the stuff coming out of the machine are the things that we buy. The boxes your toys come in. The grocery bags that our food comes in." She asked, "Why does that man have two heads?" I said, "That is the artist's interpretation of confusion and anger." Then I demonstrate by shaking my head back and forth. She asked, "Why are his eyes and eyebrows like that?" And I tell her he is sad. "Why is he sad?" I told her it was because when all of the trash comes out of the machine, we throw it away in the earth, and it is destroying the earth. She became very worried,"I don't want that to happen mommy! I want them to put all of that trash back into the machine!" She says this with a whimper, her hands covering her face. I walked her over to the recycling bins and said, "See all of this? This is where we put all of the things that come out of the machine. When you put your trash here, it goes back into the machine!" Well, that made her feel much better, and she proceeded to tell her dad about the people at the grocery store that dropped their trash in the parking lot and didn't recycle.

How easy was that? Even a 3 year old can understand it!
Inspire someone today!