4

This morning I made a comment to an author over in the UK. I asked her a question about greeting others in the British style. It all came about because as a little boy, we all knew the Irish said 'top o' the morning'. Unfortunately, she said they had nothing of the sort.

I was disappointed. I thought that was the rule. What I learned as a child still should hold true. Perhaps as a fantasy author, I still live in a fantasy world. But what if what we learned when we were children was actually true? How cool of a world would that be? My grandson Ragin' Cage is about to turn the big '4'. It's hard to believe he is that old already. I wondered, how 'awesome' (his new word) would the world be through his eyes?

Try and remember what your world was like when you were a little child. I watched the world some today as a four-year-old. As I passed over a set of railroad tracks, I remembered how excited I would become when we would get stopped by a train. Today? Not so much fun; it's an inconvenience. As a child I would always stop and stare at the sky when a plane flew overhead. I still do that some to this day. Going into the way-back machine, in those days you were also treated to the sound of a sonic boom. Even the mundane could be an adventure. In those days we weren't tied to the television and no, sorry to the children of today, there were no such things as video games. We invented our own Olympic sports to play in the neighborhood. One such game was "polockey". It was a cross between polo and hockey. We played in the streets with a ball and sticks and baseball bats and croquet mallets trying to shoot a goal. One of those games cost Baby Sis a chipped tooth.

The world of a child is a world of discovery. Everything to them is new and unspoiled. As adults, that no longer applies. We might remember the carefree days of our lives from "back when" but it can become jaded through the eyes of experience. We shouldn't let that experience color our visions of the world, no matter what obstacles we face in real life. Tomorrow begins my second day as a four-year-old.

A big thanks to Kate Aaron who was the inspiration for today's blog. Check out my 'mate' from across the pond, Kate Aaron, a British author who writes, how shall we say, with very strong opinions. http://kateaaron.com