I will start with the imagined "big deal". Mind you, that no one will die as a result of this imagined "big deal", although my pride did take a big hit....at McDuck's no less.
It's that whole God's-2-X-4 thing again. For several years now, I've gloated and chuckled - perhaps a bit too heartily - because Capt. SO could order coffee at McDuck's and always get charged the lesser amount for a "senior" coffee - without asking for a senior price. (An aside - for those of you who are not familiar with that of which I speak - If you look old and order a "senior" coffee, they will sell you a small coffee for fifty cents (or sixty - depending on which McDuck's you are at). After a while, he simply asked for a "senior coffee" each time. I, on the other hand, would order a small and get charged whatever the full-price was/is for a McDuck's small. This I took as a true sign that I still looked thirty......until last weekend, when I went into a McDuck's and the teenage twit didn't even ask me and charged me fifty cents for a senior coffee! Now I have taken this as a real sign that I officially look "old"......which leads me to the real big deal.
My first grandchild - the eldest of the Three Musketeers - will go to kindergarten in a few days. I am so thrilled for him that you would think he had been accepted into the NASA program for five-year olds. But, this is a big deal. His whole world will expand in a matter of weeks, days, hours - if not minutes. The universe will become his oyster and I cannot wait to see what kind of pearl his oyster shell creates over the years. When I asked him what most excited him about going to school, he replied, "Learning to read." and he is so right. Learning to read is like opening up Pandora's Box just a crack. It is like peering into the Magna Carta or running through the halls of the Smithsonian. By learning to read, he will have access to new horizons as well as time-tested thoughts, theories and facts. He will learn to discern and he will learn to search. For his first chapter, his school has been a carefully protected cocoon of family, home and friends. Now his second chapter begins and I can hardly wait to read his book of life - his story.
Chapter two, page one......a very big deal, indeed.
Ancora imparo
