Just an interesting moment to share. A couple of weeks ago, Laura and I went to a local park by Puget Sound. I was recovering from a cold and was really feeling a desire to be out in the sun and recover some much needed energy. We found a driftwood log on which to sit, one of the less populated spots, away from the playground patch. Children were everywhere. We observed a small pack of young boys, all of varying age, none over ten I suspect, and the youngest boy likely under two. All the usual monkey hierarchy games were afoot. They led and followed as one might expect, and like a construction site, there was an apparent foreman. He directed the crew, suggesting random relocations of logs and rocks. They seemed to derive a great deal of pleasure from accomplishing nothing specific, and most of the fun was had when objects struck each other making loud noises and corresponding dents. Laura and I laughed and pontificated about the roots of traditional manhood being represented so innocently. While all of this was going on, I had been neatly organizing a series of slender bits of wood into a kind of mini thatched awning of sorts that protruded from the log on which we were perched. A balancing game. One of the boys approached us and staggered about restlessly, some adventure pinging around in his head. He stopped to investigate a large piece of driftwood next to us. Like most of them, it was filled with small round holes. Upon noticing this fact, the boy turned to us and asked, whattr al theeese holes from...BULLETS?! We each replied in turn suggesting that it was either birds or insects that had made the perfect little holes. He seemed unfazed and staggered closer to us. Discovering my little stick sculpture he said suddenly, Howd you dooo that?! To which I replied, very carefully, in my cliche deadpan. Without missing a beat, knowing the boys nature I followed up with, You can destroy it if you want. The words had barely ceased vibrating the boys eardrums and he was smashing it apart gleefully. I picked up one of the larger sticks and wielded it like a sword at him and he ran away immediately. Laura and I laughed again. What stuck in my head about this interaction, you ask? This boy was maybe 8 years old, and his first response to an object riddled with holes was that it must be the work of bullets. The game is already over.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 20:43:49 +0000
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