It would seem to be true that what comes around goes around.
I guess.
I don’t remember whether I’ve discussed them a whole lot here, but now is as good as time as any to bring the subject up.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am an uncle to two nieces and four nephews. Two of them are named Max. They range from ages 7 to 20. Three of the nephews live within a five mile radius of me, so I tend to see those guys more than I see the others.
The three here in town are considerably younger than my own kids. The oldest one just entered middle school this year, and is playing violin at the same school that Junior played at when he was that age. Just this last week, I attended his Halloween concert where I had the pleasure of sitting next to his 7 year old brother Ty.
Sitting there in that cafeteria for a concert brought back several memories of watching Junior play violin and viola at similar events. At the same time, Juniorette attended the same school and sang in the choir. Many a time in the last decade I’ve sat in those cafeteria chairs and gotten a sore butt listening to these kids deliver aural pleasantries.
Nowadays when I attend these events, my youngest and most precocious of nephews will commandeer my phone in order to play a game or take pictures or video with it. The other night was no different, and as a result I ended up with pictures which featured a rather large, green, inflatable witch most likely designed to excite the loneliest of warlocks. There were no pictures of his brother dressed up like a mad scientist, sawing away at his fiddle.
On a side note, just what in tarnation is a scientist so mad about?
Anyway, there was a point just before the concert where my phone in the hands of a 7 year old captured a picture or two of some balloons hovering around the ceiling. “Uncle Randy,” Ty asked. “Are those balloons supposed to be up there?”
“Well Ty, science tells us that they are supposed to be up there. You see, they’re filled with helium which is lighter than air. Since nothing is holding the balloons down to terra firma, it’s only inevitable that they’re clinging to the ceiling like that.”
Ty just stared at me. Behind his glasses, you could see the cogs in his young impressionable skull processing the brilliance I had just imparted in order to determine if I had given him some bona fide intelligence, or just a load of bull.
After a moment or two of pondering the science I just dropped on him, he came to what I can only assume he felt was a proper conclusion, and demanded additional information.
“Yes or no?”
“No I don’t think anybody planned for them to be up there. They were just a victim of the science behind it.”
“Oh.” Ty continued to stare at me. “Do you still have Angry Birds Star Wars on your phone?”
“Sure,” I responded. “What do you know about trigonometry and gravitational pull?”
