October 26, 2011 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • Page 5 Ridgewood Library hosts Shih in anti-bullying performance you don’t have to try EVERYTHING!” Shih said as the children on stage indicated with gestures that they wouldn’t beat up other children or smoke if someone dared them to. Shih approved. The closing line of the song was, “Don’t follow the leader down the drain.” Shih, dancing, miming, and playing acoustic and electric guitar, was backed by Stephen Fricker – whom she described as her husband and best friend -- on bass guitar. Both Shih and Fricker have CDs of their own folk and children’s music and both have worked with big-names around the Hudson Valley, including Pete Seeger. Their message was simple but sincere – bullying was bad, and children had to “think, think, think” to avoid the sort of peer pressure that diverts pent-up aggression against harmless victims – smaller children, people of other races, or people perceived as either more intelligent or less intelligent than mainstream children. “Maybe if we all took the time to listen to one another, there wouldn’t be so much fighting in the world,” she said. Shih revised a children’s song, “Little Bunny Foo-Foo,” in which the rabbit beats up in field mice by conjuring up an image (continued on page 14) Left: Patricia Shih and Stephen Fricker with some of the children who attended the anti-bullying program at the library. Right: Louise Kim and her mother participate. by John Koster “Do you think you know the difference between making fun OF someone and having fun WITH someone?” Patricia Shih asked the ethnic kaleidoscope of children who share the stage with her at the Ridgewood Library’s Belcher Auditorium last week. “Fun is happy. It’s not fun when you hurt someone!” The children understood as they played a sort of “Simon Says” game set to Shih’s music where they had to act out good fun and mean fun, and discard the mean fun. That – and a delightful chance to appear on stage with a bubbly, skilled performer who had started performing when she was a virtual child herself – was the opportunity offered by “The Power of One.” The performance was designed to teach kids to resist peer pressure, especially when the peer pressure pointed the children toward hostile cliques and cruelty to other children. “Simon says -- don’t be a wimp – but