By Dan Barber
When I was a very small child the sounds of pigeons outside
of my grandparent’s house scared me to death because I thought the cooing
sounded like ghosts saying “boo, boo, boo.” My grandmother told me they were
really angels trying to talk to us, so I had to listen really close to hear
what they were trying to say. From that moment on the sound of pigeons and
doves cooing, has always been reassuring to me.
I recall when I was attending Rowland Elementary School a teacher told me
that if I didn’t use my mouth properly in pronunciation when I spoke then in
the future my mouth would shrink up to a little hole. That scary image is still
rattling around in my head.
When I was at Alvarado Junior High a girl told me that I
sounded like a donkey when I laughed. I am still self conscious in how I sound
when laughing out loud. I spent many years suppressing my laughter so people
now think that I’m just an old sour puss with no sense of humor.
When I was a teenager in Rowland Heights I learned how to drive and do all
kinds of repairs on my car… it was necessary because I was a teenaged boy in Southern California ’s “car culture.” Now I worry about
dying in this “car culture.” While teaching my granddaughter how to drive recently
her cell phone started ringing while she was behind the wheel and she made a grab for it;
my heart skipped a beat and we used that experience as a teaching moment! We
also had a discussion about “just because you can’t see a red light, doesn’t
mean it’s not there!” or “pay attention to the road instead of the boys walking
down the street!” I mistakenly thought that I could spoil my grandchildren and
then send them home to bug their parents. But that didn’t work out because my
daughter learned the phrase, “go ask grandpa!”
Now that I am an old man, I worry about the younger
generation evolving into something they’re not, because they worship some
entertainer behaving badly and trying to emulate those bad behaviors. I learned
at a very young age that I couldn’t do what my heroes did on TV. I discovered the
painful lesson that I couldn’t fly from the top of my grandparent’s staircase with
a towel as a cape! I recall my mother telling me while patching me up from that
experience that she was not going to buy me a “real” cape because they weren’t
real!
I really enjoy watching my grandchildren learn… I also get a
kick out of their weird habits. One day I saw three of my granddaughters and
one grandson all sitting on the couch with the TV blaring away, but they weren’t
watching the TV, they had their faces buried in their smart phones, portable
gaming thingies or whatever it was that lit up their faces. Some children are
now learning the complicated world of computing before they learn how to pull
up their pants, tie their shoes or ride a bike! I see these kids walking down
the street now constantly tugging on their drawers that are hanging down to
their knees and trying to keep from tripping over unlaced sneakers while
staring at an electronic device with wires sticking out of their ears. It’s
probably a good thing that they aren’t riding a bike…
There are some good things about today’s advancements. My
granddaughters have learned to type faster then me with just their two thumbs on a very small keyboard that I have to squint to
see, and when my stupid computer freezes up I can always call upon my young
grandsons to fix it for me.
Maybe like the old Army recruiting slogan says, “Be all you can
be” perhaps we are already there or not. If there is any justice in the future, my grandchildren will tell their children, "go ask grandma!"
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