Mar. 10, 2005 - 18:39 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

A Sad Attempt

Things get so daily after while. Same-o stuff, rinse and repeat ad nauseam. Would that I could go back to that short period of my childhood where the pleasure of life was enough, regardless what was happening in our world.

A time when I woke up with breathless expectancy of what wonderful, fun thing the day would bring. Scurrying around finding clothes to wear, having my Shredded Wheat and sliced banana, bidding Mom and Dad goodbye and heading out to school.

As I remember it, the world hummed with excitement over things adults would consider trivial, but those things set us agog. Without putting it into words, we knew that life was good, enjoyable and best of all FUN. And experiencing it with friends topped the list.

Going home from school we boys were a fermenting mass of activity. Gleefully hopping, skipping, hat grabbing recreation, ragging each other and just living life as it presented itself to us.

Times were bad of course, but that is where we lived and all we knew, equally we shared that time of life in that time of the world, those few years of childhood.

It was as if a giant Alka-Seltzer had been dropped in our midst, plop-plop-fizz-fizz and there we were, the effervescent epitomes of boyhood. Everything we thought of was exciting to contemplate as well as to put in action. And then, some plumes of thought were wishful dreaming but added to the fun. Make believe still coursed through our veins, much as it does in the dads who play Dungeons and Dragons, or some video games. Our adult bodies seem to hold the youth in us back like anchors now though.

Excitement ? Oh yes, there was excitement, somebody got a new car, a new house was going up in our neighborhood on a lot where we used to roast potatoes and cook weinies. A new house then was mostly brick with a lot of wood, some were all wood too. We managed to scavange scrap lumber, wood curls from planing, bent nails and things forgotten by now, but they were there then. Then sometimes the world intruded and we would welcome the fact that somebodies Dad had found a job and was starting work next week and grieve that someone was laid off. Unfortunately those good events were all too few but caused great fun even so when they did occur.

One thing in our favor I guess is that everything was sparkling new, never before experienced by us yet. Each new day brought miracles of learning to us. Not just in the schoolroom, but at home, on the streets and everywhere we went, things were new to us and sparkled and shone.

For a while we were the high rollers of life, we gambled on a gambol or two. But as in all things, the water of life continued to flow and we rafted into the world of pre-maturity. Hormones moaned and so did we, the chase was on and our desire to be 'one a those' grown ups who could go in and have a beer, buy booze by the bottle, and chase women to a successful conclusion. Heck, marriage and kids were far in the future -- this was the time to have unmitigated fun, fun, fun. We didn't know then and found out later what a "hang-over" was. In our scheme of being grown up was being free to do as we wished in any matter. Even though by example the grown ups we knew were not free as the breeze and were tied to repsonsibilities. In our ideas we didn't intend to be tied down like that when we grew up. In our minds 'grown up' I think dealt only with physical size and age only, not with truly serious thought.

I don't think we were like that every minute, I know serious thoughts would intrude into my kid-playful thoughts now and then, and concealed in my heart so that none of my friends would ever guess a ponderous thought had entered my mind. That would be grounds for being drummed out as a traitor to childhood.

There were a few years when running an errand for a nickel was prime excitement and cause for deliberation over a candy counter as to how to spend the whole bloomin' thing. All too short (looking back) though they seemed eternal then, was that time of my childhood. Would I, could I bring it back ? Now that would be A Sad Attempt . . . . . . . . .

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