ELEVATOR VERSION
Where did my baby Amy go? Yours? She is in such a hurry to be an adult. And the problems... Many self-inflicted through decisions made in an entire new culture of light-speed communications, and "good is bad, bad is good" media enticements--The hurt they bring to her tears me apart. Try as I might to show she doesn't need to give up on the child-like wonder and innocent joys of youth, (and what joy she once innocently bathed in) she is deaf to my call -- more interested in joining what appears to be the exciting masses of humanity being swept along in all the noises and clamour of modern adult living.
When did the little girl leave me? Where did the wonder and magic of her life and mine disappear to? Sure I'm over fifty and time stands still for no man or woman, but innocence isn't something managed by time. It's a matter of the heart and mind. How did I let her down? Did I?
STAIRCASE VERSION
Is society moving us so fast along the pipelines of connectivity and work and pleasures and demands from without, to leave us little time for the childlike wonder that caused so much exuberance in us a young men and women?
GOING BACK: My quarterback just died. Sure we're over fifty, but I'm still Simi Valley HS 1970 season most unlikely first string running back, in my heart anyway. We were the Pioneers but a "Titans" styled team --we played football the same years as the team from Virginia depicted in the Denzel Washington movie.
I took hand-offs from Phil Scattareggia for three years. I could anticipate the snap of the ball from the center, the one-half count Phil would need to get it in his hands, and how many steps to the left or right behind him I'd need to be when the ball was supposed to be slapped into my gut from him. And I remember being out in the open, waving for Phil to see me, pass me the ball -- end zone in site. Phil entered the end zone just days ago - ahead of me and most of our team mates.
We belonged to the school's government, Phil was Senior Class President, I was Student Body VP. We belonged to the exclusive Promethean Society, wore silly turn-of-the-century maroon & gold caps, sang the '60's and '70's love songs -- with soft melodies and corny lyrics (even the Doors was sedate compared to today's) and dreamed of good things, like love... Like meaning something, making a difference in the world -- you know the things of naive innocence -- and never wanted to really grow up.
We didn't expect hand outs, or entitlements. There was partying, new drugs (too many) and we were as sex hormone driven as any group of young men and women could be graduating from HS on the heels of the "free love" (sixties) but some of us actually thought sex was also about love -- the dreamy kind, the child-like type and for that special one -- and not just physical exercise done during the course of a date, or done "virtually" as so thoroughly promoted today through Internet chats,"My Space," "My Face," and "You Tube," -- places where everyone can be someone different. We had "real relationships," or we didn't, back then.
AH... Back then-- I sound like my father, but it was simpler, more innocent -- and that was saying alot because of the turbulent 1960's melodrama of Vietnam, political assassinations, sex, drugs, and rock & roll culture that had blossomed overnight. Even then the shine of the life we knew from Sunday's "The Wonderful World of Disney" seemed distant. But now? Disney owns the Playboy Channel.
I woke the next morning, after finding out about Phil passing on, with the words to one of the 1969-1970's songs we'd sing on the "quad" ringing in my ears: Betcha By Golly Wow!
"Betcha by golly wow... you're the one that I've been waiting for forever... and ever will my love for you, keep growing strong...keep growing strong.
"If I could I'd catch a falling star. To shine on you, so I'd know where you are. All the colors in your favorite shades, to show I love you...thinking of you--
"Write your name across the sky... Anything you ask I'll try...cause--
"Betcha by golly wow...you're the one that I've been waiting for forever...and ever will my love for you, keep growing strong--keep growing strong..."
While we still have time to live, we still have it for "innocence." Maybe it's time for you and I to retreat from all the vaunted sophistry of the world, the political maneuvering and posturings, and the hurried pace caused by a dozen new gadgets to make us more "efficient," and simply reignite child-like dreaming again. Live life again...love again, believe in possibilities again!
My wife came home from celebrating the 100 year birthday party of her last grandparent, grandma "Best" of Lamar, Colorado; she was gone for five days. I loved my wife that night, the night after learning about Phil... I loved with more tenderness, slowness, and adoration -- because of Phil's reminder that time waits for no one, and for young dreams, and BECAUSE...
"Betcha by golly wow!"
See you in the "End Zone," Phil!
Your thoughts and opinions on life, losses, innocence -- all welcome...
James Michael Pratt "Jim"
http://www.jmpratt.com/
http://www.powerthink.com/
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