Rock On, Levi.

#8 comes from an incident I experienced at work one weekend. I meet some of the most interesting and friendly people there sometimes. These 2 were just the beginning.

Unbridled Enthusiasm
07.20.04 (9:02 pm)
I have a part time job at Bass Pro Shops here in Memphis where I am a sales associate in the camping department. It’s a cool job; I get to play around with all the cool camping toys. It’s midsummer now and lots of families are planning vacations so I get to see quite a few young children pass through each day. Sunday a couple came by with their 3 kids, ages between 2 and 8. Before I ever saw the family I could hear the 4 year old expressing great excitement. “OH MY DADDY LOOK!” After his introduction of overwhelming joy he would point to an item and explain to his father what exactly he was so psyched about. Quicker than daddy could say “put that down!” the little heathen would already have acquired his next target and begin to shout OH MY DADDY LOOK! And here we go again.....The 8 year old son was just the opposite....Quiet and more subdued with respect to enthusiastic eruptions. Levi was his name. Levi initiated dialogue with me by saying “hello matt.” He spoke with assertiveness and politeness not common to the contemporary 8 year old. I replied with equal etiquette and asked him how he was doing. He smiled, nodded, and said he was just fine. It appeared everything in Levi’s world was just super. “Did you know boy and girl blue jays look the same?”, Levi asked with confidence. “That’s right”, I said, “just like mockingbirds.” He concurred with a nod...”yeah I was hoping to get a bird book over there (motioning toward the gift department) but did you know it costs $17?” I replied “you like birds do ya?” “Yeah, they’re very interesting.”, he said. Then his mom called him over so we said our goodbyes. “Rock on, Levi.”. I said....well actually I said “see ya.” but in my mind I was saying Rock On! For the next 10 minutes a steady stream of OH MY DADDY LOOK! could be heard in the store. I began to think back to when I was 4 years old. I can remember being so energetic and zealous in everything I did. 4,5,6,7 years old....I don’t remember too many specific events but more like feelings. Memories of not heeding repeated parental warnings....going too far from the house, playing in the fields near the big pond when I wasn’t supposed to....climbing into, onto, over, under, and through trees, creeks, ponds, tractors, and even maw maw’s freshly planted garden. My cousin Brian and I used to jump off a wall outside the church next to the cemetery. We would wait anxiously for the closing prayer to end so we could race to see who got to jump first. We would weave through the aisles dodging hands of adults trying to slow us down. In our world there were no boundaries, no fear, and no consequences. The 4 year old reminded me of all that I have grown out of. Levi reminded me of another part of my when I was his age. A time when I began to first take a deeper interest in the outdoors what things were, what they did, and how they worked. I got my hands on every bird book and nature guide I could. That energy and unbridled enthusiasm that once manifested itself by running around getting into everything I could was now being put to use.

So, where does that inner child go when we grow up? Is it a finite existence? Or is it meant to change and added to as we mature? Could it be likened to a piece of a machine?...Something you start with and add to but is so important that without it the finished product will not function as it is meant to? I believe that it is. But I also believe that sometimes you can turn off that machine for a while and take that part out and play with it on its own....Let it out....Play in the rain, see how high you can go on the playground swing, climb a tree and talk to yourself and the ants, or even roam out past the woods up to the big pond where you can skip rocks and get your new shoes muddy. Don’t ever lose that voice that once said OH MY DADDY LOOK! Let loose with a big ole OODALALY! And roll down a grassy hill.