'Audio version of this story' about 1 hour in 14 tracks.

The Cricket Story

School Counselor's Opinion

"If kids have a cold home, they need a warm school," said Keith Long, a middle school counselor in McPherson, Kansas. "Especially students in the lower grades more than middle or high school students."

Mr. Long doesn't hesitate to casually wrap an arm around the shoulder of his students while walking down the hall, but never gives a frontal or full-body hug. He shared three rules.

1 - Never hug a student that doesn't want to be hugged. You can tell quickly if they pull or shy away.

2 - Never touch a student in anger like grabbing by the ear or neck, poking, pinching, pushing or shoving.

3 - Never touch a student in a way that could give sexual implications.

Long hopes he's never faced with being told that he can't hug students because it's such a natural, traditional instinct for him.

"I would have to give serious consideration about whether I could stay in this profession," he said.

Dr. Sidney B. Simon, professor in the Center for Humanistic Education at the University of Massachusetts, would agree. He claims that kids who shove, push and knock each other down are crying out their skin-hunger needs, that they suffer from a severe form of malnutrition-a malnutrition of the skin. The cause goes straight back to our fears. Some would have us believe that touch in school is taboo because it must lead to sex. Hogwash, I say. Simon said, "Adults spread and dump onto children their own confusion and conflict about love and sex, touch and caring, and the difference between hands which touch to heal and hands which touch to turn someone on." He sums up, Please Touch! How to Combat Skin Hunger in Our Schools, a story in Scholastic Teacher, October 1974, by saying: "I hope you have been touched by the people in your life, and I hope you touch your students. If not, it's never too late to start.

OK, now it is time to get on with the hugs and give you a little background. Get ready for some statistics, not the usual kind. These are quite unscientific but something to think about.

Hug Statistics

The longest hug recorded is between barnacles. These shellfish spend most of their lives glued to one another. The shortest hugs are between subatomic particles. You know, neutrons, protons, electrons - they have only one quadrillionth of a second to get together. The slowest huggers are snails. It takes them a long time to get out of their shells. The fastest hugs can only be achieved with the help of a computer. Anyone with an Internet connection can send a cyberhug any where in the world in seconds.

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