{"id":234,"date":"2006-11-21T09:43:02","date_gmt":"2006-11-21T13:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.summerofjim.com\/2006\/11\/21\/oh-to-be-a-little-kid\/"},"modified":"2006-11-21T09:43:02","modified_gmt":"2006-11-21T13:43:02","slug":"oh-to-be-a-little-kid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=234","title":{"rendered":"Oh, to be a little kid&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I sipped my Rye, the matter of discussion was: &#8220;What was the best age to be?&#8221; A variety of ages were floated to the surface, and I guess I could have argued &#8220;yea or nay&#8221; on any age proposed. One thing was clear &#8212; no one liked their present age. Everyone picked a younger age, save one. <\/p>\n<p>He thought it would be great to be <em>much older. <\/em>&#8220;Just to be able to sit in a chair in a sunny room, oblivious to the world, lost in a dream &#038; not have a care in the world.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>That did sound good. But then again, I was a third of the way thru Wild Turkey #2&#8230; and typically <em>everything <\/em>sounds good then. <\/p>\n<p>I remained quiet to the group. Most of their choices had been &#8220;twenty-something&#8221;&#8230; or &#8220;thirty-something.&#8221; I filter those time periods thru my mind and decide that the journey would be better to an even younger age&#8230; much younger. <\/p>\n<p>Have you ever noticed that when you get a new drink, it&#8217;s like getting a new set of downs? <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m first and ten. Here it is&#8230; you have mastered walking, running &#038; jumping. You can kick a ball. You know colours, shapes, letters, numbers and are in the early stages of reading. You can talk in complete sentences. Follow a TV show. Listen to a story. Feed yourself. Know the joy of an ice cream cone. You can do all this&#8230; <u><em>and<\/em><\/u> still shit in your pants. <\/p>\n<p>Second and six. Now how good is this? &#8220;Dropping a deuce&#8221; barely interrupts your routine. There you are sitting at the table colouring&#8230; or playing with a truck in between the table legs of the dinning room table, you pause ever so slightly to take care of business and proceed on without a second thought. You know&#8230; <em>what&#8217;s the big deal?<\/em> Smell? Who cares about it? I mean it&#8217;s life, isn&#8217;t it? <\/p>\n<p>Third and three. Besides, it&#8217;s a creative process&#8230; uniquely yours&#8230; just as much as the coloured scribble that your parents put on the refrig. And how long do they keep the <em>art <\/em>on the refrig? Days? Months? Seasons? And yet they insist on taking your dump right away? Maybe you don&#8217;t want to give it up yet! Maybe you have to go behind the club chair in the den so they can&#8217;t get at you&#8230; <em>they <\/em>think it&#8217;s embarrassment. It&#8217;s about taking away something that is rightfully yours! <\/p>\n<p>Fourth and one&#8230; we&#8217;re going for it. Yeah, to be a little kid again. Do whatever you want&#8230; eat, sleep, play <em>and <\/em>shit in your pants. OK, kids have it good. You and I both know this. They cry some when they are tired or hurt; but they really are happy&#8230; it&#8217;s about the uninhibited creativity. We can learn much from little kids. And if you happen by one day&#8230; and I am sitting over at my post at Ash Creek with a small smile, a peaceful expression and look of contentment, you can rightfully assume that I have just completed the creative process. <\/p>\n<p>First and ten. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I sipped my Rye, the matter of discussion was: &#8220;What was the best age to be?&#8221; A variety of ages were floated to the surface, and I guess I could have argued &#8220;yea or nay&#8221; on any age proposed. &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=234\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-ash-creek-bourbon-conversation-corner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}