The Innocence of Youth

My grandson celebrated his 4th birthday last weekend and he had his heart set on a bowling party. So on Saturday, there he was at Hollywood Bowl with 6 of his little 4 year old friends pushing, dropping and shoving their respective bowling balls down the alley.

There were a few times it was painful to watch the ball slowly, slowly come to a stop immediately in front of the 10 standing pins. It was almost like you could hear the pins taunting the ball.

It was also quite clear (when you're watching the ball in slow motion you notice much more than you otherwise would) that there are small grooves at the end of the alley, at the end of the gutter guards and immediately in front of the pins that caused the balls when going excruciatingly slow to veer off to the left or the right gutters without making contact with the pins at all. This, unfortunately, was a frequent occurrence.

Regardless, those 7 little kids had so much fun and were incredibly happy if they even got one pin down (let's be honest, everyone in the entire group was happy if they knocked one pin down, not just the kids). It also could have been a study in psychology because clearly the little girls were much more aggressive at this sport than the boys. One little 4 year old got a score of 80!

This timidity was even true of my grandson who had actually practiced in Bend in August. However, that particular alley had the little slide where he could put his ball at the top and it gathered enough momentum to get all the way down the alley with some impact left to spare. In this instance, the hard push concept just wasn't clicking, or it was just too hard.

My point being, these kids were lucky if they got 10 pins for the entire game but they had an absolute blast. A little cheese pizza, a little bowling, some stickers, cupcakes & ice cream and they each had a day made in heaven (and probably the best night's sleep of their lives).

Maybe that's the key, as adults we need to seriously rethink what is required to make us happy. We should literally scale back our expectations and our greed and find satisfaction and joy in everyday stuff like time with our families, beautiful flowers, good music, staying in touch with friends, a tasty home-cooked meal or a good old-fashioned board game.

Life is meant to be enjoyed, period. Just because I'm significantly older than my grandson and his friends doesn't give me any right to forget that.

Webs of Steel

I can't look out the dining room window without looking directly through a spider web with a good-sized spider in the middle that is incredibly strong. Think about the last time you tried to break through a spider web when you were watering the plants in your yard or just to walk outside. The bigger the spider, the stronger the web. In fact I've walked through them on the way to work and the silk was so clingy & strong I felt like it was on me all day.

I don't know that I've ever heard what the material is they are actually composed of but it's really quite amazing. If there were spiders the size of humans, I can't imagine how impossible their webs would be to break. Hm, that thought's kind of creeping me out. I guess this is a good pre-Halloween line of thinking.

I wonder if anyone has ever tried to duplicate the texture and strength of that natural substance. I would think it would have numerous uses. But it would take a better scientific mind then mine to try to figure out the chemical composition. Maybe "the Face" will figure it out someday, he seems to have unlimited brain power, he amazes me more everyday. It's very disturbing when your speech is corrected by a 3 year old, especially when he's right.

That's enough of this eight-legged post, I can't imagine how I went on so long about a bug I despise.

Sad Reversal of Values

(I had a brainstorm when I was in the car a week or two ago so I wrote it all down in my little notebook but I can tell I was all wound up about it because I can hardly read my notes.)

I was commenting on the many aspects of society that have always been considered to be mainstays, crucial to our core beliefs. This thought process touched on all the public services that are adversely impacted when your economic and moral infrastructure breaks down.

We are without:
- Sufficient top quality teachers to provide our kids with a well-rounded, high caliber education all the way through affordable colleges that are more interested in educating all kids then in only focusing on minorities
- Sufficient police to stop gangs and truly discourage crime
- Sufficient DEA staff to stop drug trafficking
- Sufficient prisons & sentences to discourage or maybe even stop repeaters
- A sustainable way to eliminate the proliferation of guns - this is so bad even children are brandishing them around schools - today another headline that a physician in Johns Hopkins Hospital was shot

We have too much of:
- Reality tv (I'm gagging here - enough said)
- Is there a sports figure alive who makes less than $1MM a year? The same question of top actors/actresses. I don't think so. And how much does the president of the United States make? This isn't a political question, I'm talking about any president.

So how often are these sports figures and actors/actresses in the news for spouse abuse, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, cheating, or anything else that is indicative of a lack of moral fiber.

I'm not anywhere near the right side of the wing, I'm just disgusted at the Babylonian breakdown of our values. Because the behaviors these people and tv in general promote are lying, cheating, backstabbing, unhealthy conflict and just a general dearth of morals, period.

That's it, I'm done. I refuse to ruin my Friday night with any more of these painful reflections. Maybe tomorrow there will be some good news.