No Longer Sacred?

When I was a child, there were certain things adults simply did not do, or allow to be done in the presence of children.  I knew people whom the adults in my life abhorred, yet I knew nothing about their abhorred behavior because, when I was around, it didn’t exist.  However, it seems that nowadays, all bets are off.

One of the reasons I enjoy creating literature for children is because I believe kids deserve to experience something free of the raw intensity of our adult world.  Yet, there are those amongst us who think nothing of destroying the veil between cherished childhood and jaded adulthood… who, in fact, believe it to be not only acceptable, but necessary.

I was afforded the blessings of a wonderful childhood, precisely because I was not exposed to those things no child should ever see.  And I’ve heard the argument before: “But children need to understand what goes on in the ‘real’ world.”  To this, I respond, “And you don’t think they do?”  Let’s give our children a little more credit than that.

There’s a reason children are not allowed into bars, and it’s not because we’re afraid they might pour themselves a highball.  It’s because adults do things in bars, largely because of alcohol, that children have no business seeing or experiencing.

Ratings and age restrictions are in place to protect our children.  The vast majority of our lives are spent in adulthood, so how about we allow kids to be kids for as long as possible.  They’ll have plenty of time to be cynical and jaded.  Childhood is a beautiful time in life… let’s let it stay that way.

Real Books Are Better

Let’s take care of first things first… I absolutely love to read.  Since I’m a writer, that was probably a pretty easy guess.  And I prefer to read real books; please allow me to explain.  By “real” I mean books made from paper, as opposed to electronic books or reading books on a computer screen.  The reason I bring this up?  A friend recently told me how much he loves to read his books on the computer.

Therefore, I have made a list of seven reasons I feel paper books are better than books in electronic form.

1) Books are soft and pliable, something you can cuddle with in bed or in a comfy chair.  Have you ever tried cuddling with a computer?

2) If you accidentally drop a book, you can pick it up and continue reading.  A computer… not so much.

3) You can lie down and rest a book on your face, breathing in the wonderful scents of the paper and binding.  I dare you to try that with a computer.

4) You can set your coffee cup on your book.  Computers don’t make good coasters.

5) You can hide things in books, like money.  Computers tend put up a fuss when you try to stuff things into them.

6) You can make little notes in the margins of your book.  On a computer… Oh yeah, never mind.

7) Finally, what on earth are you going to do with all those great book marks?

My Second Birthday

I’d be willing to bet that you’ve never met anyone with two birthdays.  Well… TADA!  Now you have.  I have the distinguished honor of having not one, but two birthdays each year.  One on November 16th, 19…blah, blah, blah, and the other, today—December 17th. 

How, you may ask, could I possibly have two birthdays?  Today is the day I was adopted… forty years ago, today, as a matter of fact.  Now, let’s see… what was going on in the world and in the good old USA forty years ago today?  Well, the Vietnam War was raging out of control with no end in sight.  So much so that my mom thought I might actually grow up and end up being drafted into the war.  But the other thing that was going on at that same time was… the Women’s Lib Movement. 

Now, the only reason I even bring this up is because my mom and I were bordering on celebrity status, due to the fact that she adopted me as a single parent.  And in 1970, that simply did not happen.  We were hounded by the press and media for interviews, including the New York Times and even the Today Show.  Actually, my mom was the one being hounded, I just sat there trying to be a cute little toddler.  She finally had to take the phone off the hook so we could have some semblance of a Christmas together.  

There you have it… the story (in a nutshell) of how I came to have two birthdays.  I consider myself among a very elite group of people.  So, if you ever run across someone whom you find has been adopted, wish them a second happy birthday!

Sing a Little Ditty

When asked if they sing, people often quip, “Only in the bathroom.”  They usually don’t intend the remark to be taken literally, but when I was a child, it was my favorite performance venue.  I suppose the tiled floor and walls, allowing my voice to echo wildly through the air was simply too much to resist.  Oh, yes… I forgot to mention, the bathroom of which I speak was not the one in my home.  These were public restrooms, usually in restaurants. 

After enjoying a peaceful and delicious meal with my mom, and sometimes other family members, I would always find an excuse to make my way into the restroom before we left. 

 Curtain up!

Out would pour songs from 1970s top forty radio, country western, and even a little pop and rock.  But my favorite song, by far, was “Tomorrow” from the Broadway musical, Annie.  It didn’t seem to matter to me that there were people constantly invading my concert hall to pee.  I joyously continued my one-man concert, despite odd stares or rude comments.  On occasion, I would even receive a bit of applause for my effort. 

The only problem with my artistic endeavor was that the entire restaurant could hear me, including my mortified mother.  As my performance continued to rock the house, my mother would have to slink back to the men’s restroom, amid stares and uncomfortable smiles and try to figure out how to get me to shut-up without invading the porcelain palace.  Occasionally, she would have to ask a gentleman leaving the restroom to go back inside and tell me, “Your mother would really like for you to stop singing.”  Then, I would hear my mother’s voice call from outside the restroom door, “And wash your hands!”  

On one particular restaurant outing, my mother was making her way back to our booth after another impromptu concert, when the lady in the next booth chimed up, attempting to lessen the sting of humiliation by saying, “He has a lovely voice.” 

Imagine, I now sing for a living.  But then again, I had lots of practice.

Danger, Child at Play – 2 and 3

I thought about creating a separate post for each of these incidents, but I soon thought better of it and rolled them both into one catastrophic epic for your edge-of-your-seat enjoyment.

Part 2

Whenever I would play ball (baseball, soccer, etc.) on my cul-de-sac street in California, I always managed to catch one particular person in the crosshairs as I threw, kicked, batted, or otherwise launched the ball into the air… Becky Klein, the wife of Jelly Belly mogul, David Klein.  It didn’t seem to matter where she was on the street, if I was outside, and had a ball in my possession, she was virtually guaranteed a smack in the face.  

On various occasions, when my mother would be outside, watering our front lawn, gardening, or simply visiting neighbors, Becky would make her way across the street, approach my mother with a look of consternation on her face, point to the large red mark she just received, courtesy of yours truly and say, “I don’t think your son likes me.”   

Part 3 

This next incident primarily involves my mother, her date, a rock, and me.  Are you starting to see the pattern here?  One fine spring day, my mother, her date, and I were strolling up a mountainous ridge lined with rows of spectacular evergreen trees.  

During the walk, I would occasionally pick up a rock and sling it in the direction of who-knows-where.  My mom, being the smart lady that she is, told me to stop it.  However, her date, trying to be the ever cool dude, said, “Hey, what’s the big deal?  Let him be a kid.  There’s no one around for miles.”  Little did he know, I had the uncanny ability to hit someone from that distance.  

Sure enough, the very next rock I chucked hit a man on the trail below us, on the hand, no less. 

“Owww!” came the scream of pain from the now really angry man who was already embroiled in a heated argument with his wife. 

And for the coup de grace, the man looked up to where we were walking and locked eyes with… no, not me, but my mom’s date, figuring he had thrown the offending stone.  As the man climbed the hill heading for us with a less than friendly look on his face, we all decided that would be good time to head back to the car and find something else to do. 

Maybe I missed my calling as a pitcher in major league baseball.

Way Ouside the Box

Albert Einstein once said, “If, at first, an idea is not absurd, there is no hope for it.”  If that’s true, then I must be one of the most absurd people on the planet.  My entire life has been filled with ideas and experiments that would make even Willy Wonka grab for his security blanket… or perhaps his 401k.  For me, however, this has just been my normal, day-to-day existence. 

 I’ve never been the type to think, “I’m going to go to college, get my degree, and get a job in… (insert your favorite industry here).  That’s not to say I haven’t tried college – I have, and I found it so stifling that I almost pulled my eyeballs out… all four times!  I have always been a critical thinker, a busy-body who continually questions the status quo, and most college people don’t like that.  “Fitting in” has never been my style, nor my desire, for that matter.  

Now, please don’t misunderstand me.  I’m not saying that I purposely rail against the establishment just for the sake of being different.  I’m saying that I am physically, mentally, and emotionally unable to align myself with what everyone else is doing, simply because it’s what everyone else is doing.  It’s like asking a cat to bark… it can’t happen. 

I have traveled some fairly bumpy roads as a result of my thinking way outside the box.  I have lost jobs, burned bridges, and even lost a dear friend in the process.  But somewhere deep inside, I have to believe that God put this quality in me for a reason.  Thinking and dreaming in starkly unique ways is just what I do.  It’s who I am… and I’m okay with that.