I'll Have Liberty, with a Side of Two Million Laws!

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So, I have read that tiger selfies are now illegal in New York. Yay! We're safe! Okay, is this real? The best I can tell, it's not a joke.

Maybe we really needed a rule for that. I don't really know what it was all about. I don't actually care. Maybe the tax payers needed their ever-inflating legislature to use their expensive time on that subject. After all, rules solve all problems. Right?

We do love our rules. We hate our rules too. Humans are a weird species.

It seems that it is imprinted in human nature to place a high value on rules. We often carry the notion that “The Rules” are equal to “The Truth.” The human response to just about every problem is ... more rules.

There is a cruel irony to that tendency. Another part of our human nature longs for freedom and, consequently, rebels against rules!

Yet we, the human race, continue against this obvious paradox, and thousands of legislators around the world make millions of rules in an attempt to control the very human nature that rebels against them. We have rules to exempt rule makers from their own rules, and we even have rules against making rules!

Have we all lost our grip on sanity?

I think so. There is no definitive quantity of laws in America. It is estimated to be about two million. 2,000,000 laws! Be sure to keep them all straight. I wonder if there are any laws against blogging about how many laws we have.

If all those laws were written on only five pieces of paper each, the stack would be a mile tall! That is ridiculous! Maybe there should be a law against having so many laws.

But Who Emancipated Abe Lincoln?

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Well, the awkward truth is, my brother and I did. Abe was held captive, in a metaphorical sense, sort of.

It would probably be less embarrassing to not relate the event, but it was rather funny.

Our family made a trip to Uncle Buddy and Aunt Joyce's house. That was my dad's uncle and aunt. I don't remember where they lived, only that it was a longish drive. I seem to recall we were there to watch a launch or recovery of one of the Apollo space crafts. Since our family didn't have a TV, we went to someone else's house for such events.

I always felt like we were intruding on a sanctuary when our family invaded a home that did not have kids our age. Everything seemed too fragile and too in-place to have our pack of wolves roaming around in it.

We must have had dinner with them, it was a long time ago and I don't actually remember. I do remember the pond.

It was 1969 or 70-ish, I suppose, and a cement backyard pond with a stone waterfall was in vogue with middle class, redneck, working folks. At least in Texas it was a popular yard ornament. Uncle Buddy had one such pond, and lacking other suitable entertainment, it became an instant attraction for my brother and me.

In the interminable time between eating and watching the scheduled historical event, we messed about in that pond like we were miners. It must have been winter as there was no water. But Uncle Buddy's pond had something we could only have dreamed of. It had pennies bedded in the cement.

It probably took us two minutes to find a few loose pennies and earn ourselves a reprimand from dad. Uncle Buddy, on the other hand, seemed to be amused by our infatuation with the few petty coins. He said, “Those boys can have any pennies that are loose enough to come out.” That quote has hibernated for nearly fifty years, so it may not be exact. But it sure put us to work.

I have no idea how long it took us to pry out the loose coins, but we got every single penny out of that pond! Every coin is a loose coin if you work at it long enough. And there, somewhere in Texas, Abe Lincoln was emancipated by our patriotic persistence.

I presume we got into trouble for that stunt. I also presume the adults had a great deal of amusement about it. At the moment it seemed like the most logical way to get a couple of bucks. I think Uncle Buddy should have known better, after all we were kin.

It's Too Bad That Four-Year-Olds Don't Run the World.

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Honesty seems to be a completely forgotten virtue amongst the powerful. Maybe it has always been that way. But not everyone lives by deception. I know a group of youngsters that are quite honest. Maybe even brutally honest.

Not too long ago I was taking my turn in the nursery at church. The age group I work with is three- and four-year-olds. They are busy. They are energetic. They are fun. And, as I have mentioned, they are honest. They wear me out a bit, but I love it.

That particular day there were no boys in the group. I sat down on the rocking chair and mused to myself that Mrs. Brenda was going to have a busy time of it while I was relaxing. Silly me.

Mrs. Brenda was a veteran at entertaining girls and immediately had them digging in the costume box. Scarves, shawls, capes, and tiaras were all in a cloud of motion around the girls as they excitedly claimed and rejected costume parts. The objective was to dress up for a princess party. I sat back amused.

It did not take long for the girls to come to me for fashion advice. That judgment failure can be overlooked due to their age. Those kids were born with more fashion sense than I've ever been able to glean.

Then they needed items fixed. That part I could handle. Presently they were ready to be princesses and they needed some form of entertainment. One of the girls said,”Mr. RV, you be the prince!”

I was pretty comfortable and had a difficult time visualizing myself slaying dragons or fending off Huns from the rocker. I shamelessly played on the stereotype and replied, “The prince is supposed to be young and handsome.” Immediate conflict registered on the faces of those girls. Clearly in their eyes I was not prince material.

My rocking chair career was momentarily secured. Rolling with the concept I added, “Kings are old and gray.”

There was instantaneous recognition and one of the girls decreed, “You're the king!”

Some people may want to be patronized, but I just love the honesty. If the world was run by four-year-olds, I think it would be a much better place.

Why I Write, Installment #3

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Why anyone does anything is generally a complicated jumble of reasons. When people claim to do something from a singular motivation, they are either purely good, completely evil, or confused. I vote they're mostly confused.

The reason I write is … Okay, let's try that again.

One of the myriad reasons I write is because it delights my heart when people enjoy reading the story. That delight is compounded in magnitude when the person is a child. I guess I've always had a soft spot for children.

The photo that accompanies this post shows that in action. This is the daughter of Shawna, the artist doing the illustrations for the Adventures of Boathouse Mouse books. Shawna messaged: “(My daughter) loves the changes in the book, by the way! She highly approves book 1 so far. I did get lectured as I'm not done with all the sketches yet.”

Shawna's children got an uncustomary reading of an early draft of the book, and the kids loved it. I have since sent a final (or nearly so) edit and evidently it is approved by my focus group.

Why do I write? How can I not write with that kind of audience?