Nov. 15, 2001 - 20:19

THE WONDERING JEW

The Folks Inside ?

So, now hotmail is unavailable from here, and I will type something that I hope will be an entry somehow someday.

I have been reading from the home library of the Eugene Family and have run onto a book written by one of my favorite authors. It was a book of his, �Where The Sidewalk Ends� that gave me encouragement and pleasure while I was recovering from a long illness.

Many of the poems tell about me but I read one this morning that it is as if I am looking in a mirror. It is a poem by Shel Silverstein.

THE FOLKS INSIDE

Inside you, boy,
There�s an old man sleepin�,
Dreamin�, waitin� for his chance,
Inside you, girl,
There�s an old lady dozin,�
Wantin� to show you a slower dance.

So keep on playin�,
Keep on runnin�,
Keep on jumpin�, �til the day,
That those old folks
Down inside you
Wake up . . . and come out to play.

I�ve had a blast visiting with my daughter and her husband bringing each other up to date. Although we saw them in October and they will be with us for awhile in December before they leave for the Semester At Sea, we just don�t seem to be together often enough to stay updated. Heather and I are delighted to be here where the grass is always green on the west side of the Cascades and visiting loved ones.

It is a blast for both of us, but for me, once again I can again sneak back to childhood in my mind and look through their eyes at a world that adults have forgotten. I can be a grandpa to them yet be a little boy inside. When I am with them I can see the world once again in the vivid colors of childhood and feel the excitement that the young have just experiencing new things in their life...

I treasure the times when they snuggle against Heather and I while we are all on the couch while watching TV. Dinner table conversation is a mixture of adult conversation, childhood chatter with all the generations trying to understand each other. How I miss that which is past history for Heather and I. But durn it, I ain�t done with it yet ! I seem to be a decrepit old guy still in the silly attempt to revert to childhood in his spoiled way. I can laugh at grandson�s jokes in complete understanding and flash back to when I was his age and the things that tickle his ribs. He helps me remember laughing until almost crying with the sheer joy of uproarious humor.

Yet at times he and I sit and talk at a serious pre-teen level and it keeps my mind moving at a pace not normal for this old guy. He asks me for guidance with some of his homework. Ya� know we didn�t have homework in elementary school, homework started for us in Junior High (Middle School) and in the seventh grade it was light to begin with and as time passed it was a gradually increasing, time consuming load.

His daddy comes home at night with a Word Of The Day word for the family, the kids get the first crack at it and then the adults. Conversation goes beyond words then, but after dinner often grandson and I will go into the different degrees of meaning of some of the words. At times our conversation will get pretty deep, and I have to remember to be careful and not start a line of thought that might be in conflict with what his parents are teaching him. They are not rabid radicals, strict toe the line people but they know him far better than I do so I try to reinforce their line of childhood teaching.

I seem to feel younger each day I am with our grand children and luxuriate in being able to lean back and be younger once more.

Shel Silverstein, how did he know that I am one of The Folks Inside ? . . . . . . .

Blog