Saturday, June 20, 2009

Imagination Moves



"I'm going fishing, Mommy." My youngest son's voice carried excitement down the hallway where he was playing dress-up. A few moments later he appeared, ready for action (but still in his monkey pajamas); hiking stick-turned fishing pole in hand, dad's beer-drinking hat on head, life jacket securely fastened.

Proceeding with purpose towards the lid of the dress-up box, he packed his blanket and a few stuffed animals inside and took off to hook the big one. I found out just how big when, a few minutes later, he announced he had caught a barracuda. "How do you prepare a barracuda?" our intern E. asked. "Well, you just cut it all up and put it in the microwave of course," our little fisherman replied.

Of course.

I wish I had that sort of imagination. Or, at least, held on to the imagination that used to carry me through many a long summer day. Remember that? Building forts in the cedar trees in our backyard, pretending the indians were coming (no PC worries back in the 1970's), digging a foxhole in the neighbor's vacant lot, imagining that we were across the world escaping the enemy.

I love watching my youth regenerate itself through my own kids. Seems the general idea is still very much the same...I don't think I went fishing for barracuda, however.

1 comment:

dorothy said...

No barracudas...but we thought about eating spawning salmon in the creek (even while floating past them on our big black inner tubes)and had some awesome dress up experiences...I wonder if I could scan some of those old photos and share them. Guess that would take energy - something I'm a tad short on as we hit our summer stride. :)