The Story Teller

Children often grow up to be what they thought they were as children.

Jesse Kornbluth
"""""""""""""""""""
Roughing it through the days and nights of life there are many trails and detours, dead ends and surprising destinations. Alone against the wind as we all are we have to call upon some fundamental strength and know how. Getting through life is no easy task but millions of people have done it so it happens to be not only a possibility but also an obligation. The foremost duty, of course, is too oneself. It may not be possible to fulfill all the promises of one's childhood, but it usually means that some of the lesser important things must pass into the scrap book of good intentions.

The temptations of life dangle in front of our faces most of the time. And what do we make of them? We may make choices. After careful thought, analysis and hopefully some good guidance, we decide on a plan of action and go staggering forward into some kind of future. But a certain time must come when we finally realize that what we've been doing while we filled up a resume of activities to impress a boss or a family reduces down to a being we always were.

When I was a child we lived near a park. Kids played ball there. Mothers walked their babies, men walked their dogs. In one area of the park there was a wild place with bushes and a small pond. I liked to sit there and dream about things. One day a neighbor boy brought over a strange fern-like thing he had picked somewhere. He showed it to me and asked me if I knew what it was. I didn't know but I pretended I did and made up an identity for it. I even gave it some magical powers. I finally had to tell him I was making it up because he started to believe me. After that he brought his friends and they had me invent stories about twigs, bottles and whatever they could find.

It seemed obvious to some that I was going to be an actor because my family had been in show business. But I had to wade through a morass of alternatives and promises until one day I woke up and realized that acting was what people expected of me and what some of them were paying me to do. So I spent the next 50 years on the stage telling other people's stories. Now I'm retired and I write my own. Bring me a fern and I'll tell you all about it.

DB - The Vagabond
**********************

WEEKEND PUZZLE

You are to finish the following sentence by filling in the blank spaces with whatever words you choose.

Once I had ___________ and I _____________ but ________which was too bad, but _____________ any way, and _________________ at last.

The best sentence wins a prize. The decision of the brain challenged judge is final.

Good Luck
DB
*******************

Act Your Age

I think you should be a child for as long as you can. Don't rush into adulthood, it isn't all that much fun.

Bob Newhart
*********************
I'm not suggesting that anyone should go through what Shakespeare calls "second childishness" but I believe it is a healthy thing to hold on to one's childhood, and hold it up on a silver platter in one's heart. Not the past errors, wrongs, sorrows and pains of early life, but the spirit of what one was and, in fact, still is.

I am for finding inside the boy or girl you were and are. Recover the unlost sense of curiosity, wonder, adventure and surprise. You are still a kid, even if it doesn't show on the outside. There are a lot of things about you that don't show on the outside. If you saw me walking down the street you would think "There goes a doddering old relic, What a wretched wreck. He's probably a drunk." You would never know that the doddering old wreck was the writer of peppery posts and baffling blogs.

I often say to youngsters "Don't grow up too fast." They never like to hear that. I usually get a poker faced silent response. They want to be grown ups, immediately. That youth is wasted on the young is an old saying and a true one. But it isn't wasted on those for whom their youth is still a present quality in their lives. With age comes experience, knowledge and, hopefully, some wisdom. It doesn't have the innocence and preciousness of youth. Too many tears, too many disappointments, too much pain make old age hard on folks. But even if the physical vigor abates why does the mental vigor have to go?

I don't look in the mirror often, but when I do, yes, I see the wrinkles and the gray hair and I wonder who or what I'm looking at. I'd rather look at the future, to look at possibilities, adventures and discoveries. I'd rather see the boy I've always been. Who knows, someday I might grow up. But I don't think so.

DB, Vagabond
*********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

In your opinion what is the most amazing thing that could happen during this decade? Make it as outrageous as you want but keep it within the realm of what you consider a possibility.

14 responses so far.

Answers will be published the first day of Summer.

Thank you.

dbdacoba@aol.com

DB - The Vagabond
*******************