Presents

Rix got a present Sunday and so did Nils. Nils's present was seeing Kristen. Rix may enjoy being with me but not as much as I enjoy being with him. It is just like being with Kristen when she was that age. The same easiness, the same niceness, and the same mind constantly observing and working. Walking along holding the hand of a little blond human being, a blessing I have had four times in my life. Five times if I count my brother, who was once little if one can believe that. I watched Rix's mind work as he took the word train and put different letters in the beginning to make new words. He didn't do it with Playskool letters on a refrigerator, he did it with his mind. It reminded me of our adventures with Sammy the Snake. He will have no problem with mathematics, he already has the tools. No man stands taller than when he stoops to take the hand of a child. Kristen, not even two years old, calling out the letters S and P from the salt and pepper shakers. Kristen, calling out the word exit from a sign in a store. Memories etched in my mind. Poor Alan, he is going to be up late at night finding out why the sky is blue because the question is coming. It came for me three times but knowing Alan the answer is already there. Then there will be FACTORING, the dreaded factoring. Daddies have to know or at least pretend that they do, it's their job. It isn't any easier when Mommy already knows. Alan will find that out. Watching a child marvel at the display of light from a prism. The good days go too fast and soon will come a bicycle and then a car and Daddy is no longer sought out for answers, Daddy is simply Mr. Know-it-all. The wrinkles from the peas are now on Daddy's brow. The saddest day is the first day the child gets onto a school bus, for that is the beginning of the journey on which the child learns that Daddy has the feet of a Babylonian god. I was lucky, mine never did, he always knew. He sat up many nights explaining things to me that I was sure he could never understand because it was the NEW mathematics. New, as in Newton? Walk with me, down the road of history. Hear the symphony whose theme, is the song of Man.