Each of us defines our own success in life

What is it with kids these days? These teenagers have been taking their game up a notch and it doesn’t matter if I compare teen-me or adult-me to them, I’m left nursing my pride.

Livescience.com reported this week that 14-year-old Anika Chebrolu from Frisco, Texas, may have just helped to save our lives. No biggy. Whatever. I can flip my tongue over – both directions – so I’m not without skills.

Chebrolu identified a molecule that can bind to and potentially disable the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. She won first place and $25,000 in the 2020 #M Young Scientist Challenge for middle school students in the U.S.

You know what I did when I was 14? I cried when I had to give a public speech.

Chebrolu told CNN that she develops “this molecule further with the help of virologists and drug development specialists will determine the success of these efforts.”

Whatever.

Y’know what else I did when I was 14? I raised a black bear cub. It doesn’t take particular smarts to raise a bear cub. I did show some measure of responsibility by going out to his pen every day to feed him and clean up after him. And, they ain’t all Gentle Ben, either. It does take a little be of attention to detail and physical prowess to not get hurt by those feral little buggers.

So I had that going for me – until I read about 15-year-old Virginia Ward of Fairview, North Carolina, who won the 2019 Youth Award as part of the George and Helen Hartzog Awards for Outstanding Volunteer Service in the National Park Service.

Seems Ward has been “repelling off the highest cliffs of Western North Carolina” since she was 12, USNews.com reported Sept. 7, helping plant ecologist Dr. Chris Ulrey study rare plants in Blue Ridge Parkway. It seems that Ward marks and takes measurements of the plants while dangling in a climbing harness from a rope.

Ward told USNews that her mother, who is the CEO of the parkway’s foundation, took Ward on nature hikes and taught her how to identify all the trees in the parkway by the time Ward was 4 years old.

You know what I learned when I was 4 years old? How to whistle. Sure it was just the ol’ put your lips together and blow kind of whistling, but I was self taught, so perhaps a bit of a natural virtuoso.

In fact, now that I think of it. When I was 12, my older brother learned to whistle louder than me by using his fingers, then spent the next week advancing his technique so he could use all combinations of his fingers. His gloating was maddening.

I spent an inordinate amount of my free time trying unsuccessfully to figure out the technique. Not to be outdone by my lifelong tormentor, who refused to show me how this finger-whistling was done, I taught myself, in secret, to whistle in a technique that uses my tongue tip and lower lip against my front teeth. It was brilliant. It was ear-piercingly loud. It was obnoxiously loud. It was mine.

The next time he started up with his “superior” finger-whistling, I saw the chance to vanquish my nemesis.

“Oh,” I said, with a perfect blend of nonchalance and pity, “that’s too bad you have to stick your fingers in your mouth to do that. Kinda gross, too. It’s really too bad you can’t do this.” And I whistled really loudly – at least 100-times louder than he could, as I remember it.

The flash of jealousy across his face and the memory of him marching stiffly away in anger, are all the reward and recognition I will need for that virtuoso performance.

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I know I shouldn’t be proud of that, but a younger sibling needed all the little victories she could get in the sibling wars at [email protected] .