A Silver Drop of Innocence

He has an XBox and a Wii. He has a Nintendo DS. He plays games on my iPhone. Like many kids his age, he loves Mario Brothers, those plucky plumbers who were born in my era, originally jumping monkey-rolled barrels and climbing ladders in a free-standing video game in an arcade. Despite his constant access to Mario and the mustachioed chap's rangy, green-clad brother, Luigi, my younger son was determined to find a way to play Mario Brothers on the computer. I'm not quite sure why, but it's been very important to him.

So, we sat together and I looked. I found lots of places to play, but none that I was willing to expose my computer to, for fear of viruses which might result from the downloads and restarts the sites required. I explained this to the little guy, arm around his shoulder as he sat on my knee. I told him: "There are bad people out there who put something called viruses into computers. If we get a bad one, you might never be able to play games on the computer again. Would that be good?" "No," he said, wiping away tears. "But Dad, couldn't you just check to see if they are good?" I hugged him and explained that it doesn't work so easily.

Clanks and Pings

I remember watching The Jetsons as a kid. I also remember picking up the message about the direction of technology that the creators built into the Jetsons' lifestyle. Mostly, I remember thinking how unnecessary some of it was. Couldn't they walk? They needed conveyor belts for everything? Robots had to dress them? Of course, this is all part of the cliched fear of the mechanized age. It's how the Eloi became so frail. It's why we imagine aliens with huge heads and weak limbs. Someday, the writers imply, technology will do everything for us. Ridiculous, right?

This weekend, I was with my sons at a neighborhood kid's birthday party. He had it at a place called "Funplex." (What ever happened to names like "Mister Licorice's Candy Drop Mountain? [long pause ] What?) It is a wonderland of technological fun -- go carts, video games. The works.

Steve and Walt (A Dialogue)

Two worker ants, Steve and Walt, sit, resting, after a long day's work.

Steve: Tough day on the hill, eh, Walt?

Walt: You said it, Steve-o. I must have carried about ten times my body weight a few hundred times.

Steve: What's that work out to?

Walt: No idea. That's math I can't handle.

Steve: True that.

The Worldwide Soliloquy

I believe this will happen. I really do.

Some day, everyone in the world, at the exact same time, is going to stop what they are doing and they are going to slap their own foreheads and speak the same soliloquy, in unison, from one end of the Earth to the other. This will be it:

If Fate's Cannon Misfires . . .

Bartram's house.

This weekend, I attended a loved one's wedding at a historical site in Philadelphia: Bartram's Gardens. John Bartram, sometimes called "The Father of American Botany," was a man who built his home, botanical garden and research site (all by himself), around 1770, a short walk above the banks of the Schuylkill River. The place is a small cluster of stone buildings nestled in among trees and the austere natural surroundings that are so characteristic of the northeastern part of the United States; surroundings that always feel so much like a warm blanket to me.