“Joey, pull my finger,” my uncle urged me. I’m not quite sure when that flatulence generating joke began, but it is so classic that it must’ve started about the time that man had a finger and an ability to fart. For me it was my seventh Thanksgiving, when my uncle uttered those four magic words. It was then I knew that I had to find a way to escape the kids’ table and make it to the nirvanic world known as The Table – where Jimmy and the adults ate and pulled each others’ fingers.
The kids’ table at our house was a red-legged folding table with a flimsy tabletop that resembled a pegboard without any holes. I never understood why the wildest of all beasts were put at the weakest of all tables. This year, I wouldn’t have to worry about that. I was sure that after sharing in the rite of the finger pulling that my uncle would invite me to join him at The Table. No more flimsy metal legs. No more childish conversations. No more airplane sounds as the spoon entered Eddy’s mouth. Yep – this was the year that I said niños adiós and hola adultos!
The other day I was thinking about the whole premise of The Stranded Starfish – the idea that even though there may be a thousand stranded starfish on a beach, throwing back one may not change the beach landscape but it makes a big difference in the life of that one starfish. This is a great story if that creature is as small as a starfish. What if there were a thousand whales on that beach?
Halloween is a mixed bag for me. I’m not wild about the door to door stuff, but I absolutely love watching dads and moms turning their kids into superheroes. Seeing parents’ incredible passion for brainstorming creative ideas is only surpassed by the bright beam that comes from the smile of a proud Superman or Elsa.
It’s ironic that the more we connect, the less we connect. We have built a technological juggernaut of interwoven personal network connections yet have lost some of the basic skills required to make these relationships meaningful. It’s the analog of knowing how to slam dunk a basketball but forgetting how to dribble.
Eight years ago I made one of the best decisions of my life. That was the year I stopped putting up outdoor Christmas lights.
It’s that time of year when Facebook lights up with all of the things our friends are thankful for. Thanksgiving is wonderfully special in that it requires no religious affiliation and doesn’t exclude anyone based on what they believe. Regardless of how little one has, anyone can be thankful. The fact that you are reading this means you have a heartbeat, basic respiratory functions and an means for surfing the web.
They say that with age comes wisdom. It seems as we get older we feel it is our duty to share our wisdom with everyone else. Unconvinced? Watch a Facebook conversation between a new parent and those that have already been there and done that. You can almost hear the parents with older children saying, “Bless you heart,” to the first timers.