Discovering the Wheel
Little boys, in a bigger sense, are really like Neanderthals minus the excessive hair and the clubs, when you think about it.
Imagine the first person to ever discover what a wheel or two could do for overall life improvement. Gone were the hernia and groin injuries, gone the days when the members of the tribe would mercilessly rib you for not being able to haul a 20,000 pound mammoth back into the cave. When people mention the expression 'reinventing the wheel', it's an adequate euphemism for just how important the wheel was and still is.
Enter Bash, my four year old. When he first discovered a Matchbox car, he would roll it back and forth on the floor, perplexed that there was such a thing as wheels. The teddy bear was wonderful but needed to be dragged. Same for the legos and the bag of bowling pins he liked to tow around. Now here was something much more spectacular, something that virtually ran on its own. He would look at the car from top to bottom, get down on the floor with his cheek pinned to the floor and inspect this wonder from every angle. Such was the power of the wheel. Little did I know how he would continue to feed this obsession.
Before you knew it, he would be asking questions more than any person since Socrates. What is this car? What is that car? A truck? A bus? I patiently would answer, That's a VW, that's a Toyota, that's a Ford, etc. The similar makes of all cars in the 21st century would be a challenge for most adults, let alone most models. Not so for Bash.
Sooner or later, there comes a time in life when the children will eventually show up their parents and reduce them to absolute fools, whether this is through advanced technology, who the latest rock star is hitting the charts, what the latest craze is in the physical fitness world is, etc. I'm sure there were many times when I would baffle my parents over the latest software or computer applications that in their day were as inconceivable as life on Mars or robot nannies. To be fair to my parents, that wouldn't happen until I was in my 30's.
Today's kids don't wait at all. They will make you look dumber than Forest Gump before they can even read or write. There's nothing like being upended mentally by a four year old.
These days, whenever we are on the road or just out on a short walk, Bash will point out all cars. That is a Toyota Highlander. That's a Prius. That's a Ford Explorer, Papa. Oh, a Lincoln Navigator! Did you see that Honda Civic? Bash has that down as if he'd invented the wheel, or the cars' makes and models, in this case.
Of course, I also realize it helps to have hawk eye vision like he does. I can be driving along, minding my own business, keeping my eyes on the road and my hands on the wheel when Bash will pipe up, 'PAPA! PAPA! There's a Toyota 4Runner!' Nah, I'm thinking, no 4Runner around here. He just fancies that VW bug that just passed us to be what he says it is. Or the name 4Runner is especially sexy to him these days. No, Bash insists. There's a 4Runner. I will be driving another 100 yards, and sure enough, at the side of the road there's the 4Runner that Bash had spotted and I had missed all along.
It gets worse once he corrects you. He will be yelling at the top of his lungs, 'PAPA! PAPA! There's a Honda Pilot!' Nah, I tell him, that's a CRV, I tell him. It's a Pilot, he will swear up and down. No way, I am thinking. That's a CRV and in due time, once we draw closer we will confirm…that it is a Pilot. Nice. So now my four year old has scoreboard on me with the cars' makes and models. This at four years old. I can't wait (actually, I can) when he turns 14. By then, he will show me how cars can run on banana peels and mulch.
I can already see where this will be heading in other fields:
Worldchump: The civil war was fought over the abolishment or the preservation of slavery, depending on which side was fighting.
14 year old Bash: No, Papa. Records clearly reflect that Abraham Lincoln was in it for one reason and one reason only: to save the Union.
Worldchump: Awesome blitz. The quarterback never saw that coming. That's how you play defense in football.
14 year old Bash: Papa, that was actually not a blitz, but a tricky little fake that finds the front four in basic pass rush formation while the linebackers peel back at the last moment in pass coverage. A clever Split-68 read formation designed to confuse the quarterback while enabling maximum pass coverage. Don't you know anything?
Every now and then, he will have his red ass moments when he HAS to be right, when nothing I say will pass for the truth in his world. There could be a loader, he will insist it's a bulldozer, it will be a loader, but it doesn't matter, because it is whatever he says it is. On good days, though, he will blow me out of the water. I will ask what car it is approaching us, he will correctly state the make and model and look for the next vehicle, too immersed in his thoughts to gloat over his victory.
It's quite possible that he will move on to something more exciting one day, like superheroes and football. It's very likely that he will eventually get into girls and skateboards and Star Wars.
For now, the wheel rules.
Every time we head somewhere by car, this is how the conversation goes:
Worldchump: Bash, let's go. Time to get in the car.
Bash: It's not a car. It's a Jeep.
Right.
It could be worse. I hope he doesn't discover fire anytime soon.
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