From the March 5, 2010 issue of the County Journal
With Poor Richard’s Almanac, my ESV (English Standard Version) Bible, the New England Journal of Medicine, Bartlett’s Quotations, a World Atlas, and Robert’s Rules of Order at the ready, I put the kids in the truck and headed out for our 20-minute ride to church.
As is their habit, the kids began firing questions as soon as we left the driveway. They led off with a simple one: How do you get to China? I explained that China was a long way from us and you needed to fly over the ocean and I wasn’t sure which way I would go, either east or west. I assured them you couldn’t “dig for China” and that I didn’t know if the kids over there were told to “dig for America” or not.
Then we heard question #2: When is summer going to be here? June 21. The forecast calls for sunny skies and a high of 87.
As we turned right from Lake Hardeman Road onto Highway 125, I was asked about junkyard dogs. Why are they in the junkyard, where do they sleep at the junkyard, will they let you go up and pet them, and why would a dog want to be at the junkyard in the first place?
Question #4 was about why you had to get shots at the doctor, when the shots hurt more than getting sick in the first place...
Number five came up because our new reader in the family (now when we spell words to each other so they won’t know what we are talking about, we have to use words so big that I usually don’t understand either) wondered what a “thru truck” was and why you couldn’t have any of them and should we tell on our neighbor for having a big truck. My explanation raised more questions than it retired, although I assured them the neighbor was not in violation of county law.
There were others, such as the designated hitter rule, why cats have whiskers, the biggest pine cone I have ever seen and if dogs had a language or are they barking to just bark, which was a sidelight to the junkyard dog volley of questions.
Someday, they will decide I don’t know what I’m talking about and I’ll only get silence from the back seat. But in the meantime, I hope it’s nice on June 21. I’d like to have gotten one right.
Darrell Teubner, Editor
