The Sky Is Falling

I loved reading the fairy tale Chicken Little to my daughters when they were little. They enjoyed the goofy voices I gave each of the characters, but I’m not sure they always understood the underlying meanings of the story. For those not familiar with it, Chicken Little gets hit on the head by an acorn and thinks the sky is falling. She sets off to tell the king this important news and along the way meets a few other characters with equally complex names such as Henny Penny, Turkey Lurkey, and Ducky Lucky who join her journey to the king only to be lured into the den of Foxy Loxy (or Woxy depending on the version). And as each character joins her, they all shout, “We’re off to tell the king….the sky is falling….the sky is falling.”
I was thinking about this story while walking the dog during my lunch break on a cool Friday in the first week of September. Walking the dog is probably the time when I’m the best listener because no one’s talking to me. A sad statement for someone who teaches communication, but without students, colleagues, family, or friends requiring my attention, I can just walk and listen to the sounds around me. And on this day in September, I heard the sounds of falling. No, it wasn’t the dog or me but acorns and walnuts and apples as they hit the road, a roof, and the ground with a plop, a ping, and a thud. It seemed a melancholy sound at first because their falling means the advent of autumn, the foretelling of fall……fall……falling. But when I really, really listened to all the things falling, their sounds seemed a rhythmical climax to the tempo of my footfalls. Then I thought about Chicken Little some more and thought I’d probably better pay more attention to where I was walking so the sky didn’t fall on me while I was walking under it.

As with most fairy tales, Chicken Little was meant to have a moral and teach children lessons about good and bad behavior. The traditional version had Chicken Little and all her friends going into the fox’s den never to return in order to teach children the dangers of strangers. Well, as a young mother I didn’t favor the idea of scaring my children so I preferred the version where the king’s men happen by with their hunting dogs who chase the fox away. The king then rewarded Chicken Little with an umbrella so she would no longer worry about the sky falling on her head.

The story has also been used as a way to teach children to have courage and not be afraid. This is where we get the expression, “Don’t be a Chicken Little, just try it.” But the particular meaning that I wanted my daughters to appreciate was that if they believe something to be true and worthwhile, they should pursue it no matter what the cost. I only hope they won’t ever pay the ultimate cost as did the real Chicken Little.

Maybe I’d better start walking the dog with an umbrella to protect me from falling objects or maybe one of those objects will hit me and bring enlightenment as the apple did for Sir Isaac Newton. I wonder if it was this time of year when he saw it falling from the tree in his orchard?