Charlie Sings at Preschool, 1959
When my friend Dick’s nephew Christian was four or five — and let it be said here and now that Christian is now a father, himself– he made some profound observations, one of which has been rattling around in my head all day today. It’s not the long-agos that are hard to remember, he said, It’s the short-agos.
I didn’t realize before that pronouncement that pre-schoolers and us old ducks have so much in common — but maybe so. I was looking for my cell phone at the time (and thinking irritably “but I just HAD it) when those words came back to me. Sometimes on those moonless, starless black, black nights we face in winter, I remember that he said in amazement on such a night, “Ooooh! BIG DARK!” He was two.
It’s comforting to remember those “out of the.mouths of babes” words. Like the time my son Charlie was asked by his pre-school teacher (who was reviewing a lesson on music) — “What do you call it when two people sing the same song at the same time?” Without missing a beat Charlie said, “A coincidence.” Or the time he told me to “Come Quick! I can’t turn off the water and the bathtub is going to overfloat!” Or when he described one of my mother’s friends as “volumptuous!”
None of which, of course, helped me find my cell phone, but my perspective surely did improve considerably!
” she wrote. Both she and Charlie understood why Marta’s photo (she being the photographer) was backward and I think they felt they could figure out the solution but we were running out of time. And anyway, to my way of thinking, it represents the three of us quite well!
