By Dan Barber
From the time we take our first steps to become a toddler we
are launched on a quest for adventure. I recall living in a world where
everything was big. The house I lived in with my parents and grandparents was
huge, the walk I took with my grandfather to the corner store seemed like it
took forever… Of course my grandfather was walking and I was running to try to
keep up with him. The amount of time I had to wait for Christmas took forever.
Also, while in school the day seemed to drag on and on until recess or the end
of the day. Summer break seemed like a forever blissful playtime because the
days were so much longer than in the winter…more light from the Sun, same
amount of hours in the day…I know that now.
Many years later when I took my children by the old house
and neighborhood where I spent my toddlerhood I was amazed by how everything in
my young life had shrunk. The house was much smaller than I remembered, the
distance to where the corner store once stood now seemed to be right next door
to the small house! Somehow my universe shrunk.
Time also seems to be speeding by faster and faster. It
seems like just I graduated from high school but in fact I just turned 65 and
had to sign up for Medicare! With nine Grandchildren and a Great Grandchild on
the way makes the time between birthdays and holidays way too short a time to
get caught up.
I’ve been told a number of times over my lifetime that I was
“wasting my time” by “doing nothing.” I counter that it isn’t possible to “waste
time” because time will continue on until the end and there isn’t any clocks or
calendars around to measure it. Also, it’s not possible to “do nothing” because
just the act of doing nothing is in itself is doing something.
A couple of years ago I wrote something about my 3-year-old,
at the time, grandson. We spent a morning just sitting on a bench at Knott Sky
Park here in our neighborhood watching a park and recreation employee riding
around on a mower cutting the grass while my grandson was breathing in and out
on his harmonica. We could have been mistaken for wasting our time doing nothing,
but we were being hypnotized by the beautiful morning and the hum of the riding
lawn mower and my grandson’s out of tune musical experiment. What I was doing
was working on my immortality, at least in the memory of my grandson. In
addition we were soaking up some Sun and the vitamins it provided.
I suspect that a lot of people can equate the waste of time
and doing nothing with our political leaders we elect to represent us. We all
know, or should know, that politics is always local, which means a Senator, who
was voted into office by the population center of Las Vegas to represent the
State of Nevada will no doubt be very popular with the people of Las Vegas, but
could be considered a total moron by the folks who live in Elko, Nevada or some
other small town in the state.
I suspect that I need a lot more time to work on my
immortality with my other Grandchildren and, soon a Great Grandchild, so I’d
better stop wasting my time by rambling on here about doing nothing and get
busy doing something!
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