Beech Tree News Network

A week ago, during the rehearsal dinner, the night before my daughter married my son-in-law, my granddaughter, Sabria, whispered something in my ear.  “I have a surprise for you after we finish eating,” she said.  “Okay,” I said, “I can hardly wait!”
    After the group finished the meal and we paid the check, I approached Sabria.  “What’s the surprise?” I asked.
    “We’re all going bowling!” she said.
    I had to laugh.  It was sheer audacity, only found in a five-year-old, that would cause her to truly believe she could persuade a group of twenty-five to head to the bowling alley the night before they were to be part of a wedding ceremony at Graceland.
    “I don’t think we’re going to be able to do that,” I said.
    “Why not?” she asked.
    “Because,” I said, “We’ve got the wedding tomorrow, and we need to get back to the room and get some rest, because we have to get up early, eat breakfast, take showers, fix our hair, and get over to Graceland.
    I watched her face fall as I kept adding to the list, and suddenly, I was really sorry we couldn’t go bowling.  We had been together as a group for two hours in a very noisy restaurant, barely able to hear the ones seated right next to us.  Natalie and Scott knew all of us, but we knew very little about each other.
    What would have happened if we had left the restaurant and gone to the bowling alley?  After a few splits, spares, strikes and gutter balls, we would have known all about each other.  Kids know this.  They learn all they need to know about one another through play.  They know who cheats, who doesn’t wait their turn, who takes more than their fair share, who pouts, who tattles, who is kind, who is a gracious winner and who is a sore loser.  That’s why they’re so perceptive.
    We probably lose some of our perceptiveness as adults when we stop playing.  We’re good at watching others play.  We watch football games and basketball games and soccer games and a gazillion other forms of play on TV.  We analyze play, our friends analyze play, TV commentators analyze play, but in the end, we’re just spectators.
    I often tell myself I have too much to take care of to stop and play.  Thoreau, of Walden Pond fame, said, “A man is rich in proportion to the things he can afford to let alone.”  I’m afraid I would be very poor in Thoreau’s eyes. 
    Recently, I cleaned out an old chest where I kept items left over from my kids’ art project days.  I found a stack of construction paper three inches high, four sets of colored pencils, dried-up markers, stencils, foam boards, graph paper, calligraphy pens, stampers, water colors, and scissors—five pair.  Natalie will soon be 35 and Nikki is 31.  Why do I keep all that stuff?  Yes, I have a granddaughter, but the stuff in there will get her through junior high, with enough card stock left over for seven or eight good origami squirrels.  
    Sabria spent the night with us on Thursday night.  She went into the sun room and started digging through the bins of old toys she left with us when she moved into her new house.  She found a set of plastic bowling pins and a plastic bowling ball.  She set them up against the far wall in the living room.   
    “Come on Gee and Papa,” she said, “We’re going bowling.”
    Garey and I dragged ourselves off the couch—it had been a forty-five-oil change day—and plopped down on the dining room steps, which Sabria had designated as the cheering section.  In her first attempt, Sabria came up with a spare.  Garey had the same result on his turn.  I was next up, and I bowled a strike.
    “It’s a home run!” Sabria shouted, as she jumped up and down, clapping.
    Indeed it was.  Thoreau would have been proud.
(There was a mistake in the Susie Boggess quote in last week’s column.  The quote should have read, “You can never really run everything you start.”  Hopefully, that will make the point of the column make sense now.  Sorry about the confusion.)