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The bright look on my 3-year-old grandson Corwin's face as we pulled into the nursery told me it was going to be a great day. From a child’s
perspective, the
world seems simple"Look at all the plants!" he said. "I can't wait to pick one out."
I had promised to take Corwin shopping for a birthday present for his mother and decided to take off from work and make a day of it. He knew exactly what he wanted to buy. "I want to get a mango plant," he said.
I showed him a mango tree in a nearby yard and persuaded him that it was a bit large for their apartment. He settled on a taro-like plant with beautiful leaves and carefully picked out a pot for it. He left the nursery delighted with his purchase.
It's a treat to spend a day off looking at the world from a child's perspective. I suppose I could have gone to the Legislature or City Council to see children at play, but I prefer the perspective of a child who isn't in the pocket of special interests.
When his mom brought Corwin over the night before, she hauled out the old family photo albums to show him what she looked like at his age.
In particular, she wanted him to see pictures taken of her at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, where they were planning a short vacation. There was one shot of her disappearing around a bend at Devastation Trail. In another, she played in a field of flowers at Namakani Paio and was the brightest blossom of all.
But Corwin had the indifference of a Seinfeld character: "Is this about me? No? Then I'm not interested." He did look at a few pictures of our family when his mother was 8 and asked sadly, "Where was I?"
He just can't imagine a world without him in it. More and more, neither can I.
He saw pictures of a younger me -- first with my faux-hippie locks and later with a more stylish Sgt. Pepper haircut - and refused to believe it was me. Why? "Too much hair," he said, knowing he was touching a nerve.
Even a picture of me on a horse didn't impress him. It was around 1975 and the developers of Waikoloa had tapped the Big Island press corps to participate in a charity horse race.
They piled us onto a bus and supplied coolers of beer for the 90-minute ride from Hilo to Waikoloa. Once there, they lifted us onto horses -- in many cases for the first time in our lives -- and towed us out to a track that cleverly had a finish line near the barn. When set free, the ponies ran for the barn as fast as their affronted little feet could carry them. Ranch hands tried to stop the stampeding beasts and save our lives as we crossed the finish line. Obviously, this event was organized before they invented personal injury attorneys.
I was pitted against Hugh Clark of the Advertiser. I managed to hang on, but I could see poor Clark bouncing up and down his horse's neck until he finally fell off the front end and was nearly trampled. The beer from the bus spared him immediate pain -- and probably the pain recalling any of this.
I'm sure Corwin would have been greatly amused to see this, but hearing it told failed to capture his interest. "That's not you," he said. "Too much hair."
David Shapiro is managing editor of the Star-Bulletin.
He can be reached by e-mail at editor@starbulletin.com.
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