Now that I have, with God’s blessing, good living or just plain luck
reached well past middle age. The thought occurred to me that I am
now nearer the time of my demise than I am the day of my birth.
But your mind is always young I hear you say. Not so, for my mind
is also well past middle age. I cannot think any more as I did when I
was four or ten or even twenty-one. If that were possible then I would,
body permitting, act the age I was thinking I was.

No, I am seventy- six years of age and I have the mind of a seventy- six
year old male. If I wish to be myself at four years of age again, I can only
be so by my reasonably well preserved memory. I can only remember
that I was once four year old.

My dear grandson has just turned five; my wife and I have him for two
more Friday’s before he starts school. We have had him every Friday for
four years and during the latter two years I have tried to play with him as
as if I were his age. It just cannot be done; I am not his age, not in mind
and certainly not in body.

The problem that I faced was how to teach him to get the best out of being
the age he is and I find that I cannot fully do that. Nineteen thirty-two is
far different to Two thousand and six. So much has changed, particularly
values, or had they? When I look at the news on TV, I say to myself; life
and property are no longer sacred, respect for the elderly is unknown to a
lot of the youth. Yet under the surface there is a currant of warm water, a
currant of values that are being taught by concerned parents, and the their
young children are responding to those teachings.

I may not be able to beat my grandson at one of his computer games, or
explain to him what an Ipod is, but values, that I can teach him. Where
better than to start with the Ten Commandments. Not just the basic ten
that we read in the scriptures but others that go along with them. THOU
SHALT NOT KILL (NEITHER THINK TO KILL). THOU SHALT NOT
COVET THY NEIGHBORS WIFE (NEITHER THINK TO DO SO).
Thinking is as bad as doing. LOVE THY NEIGHBOR (WHATEVER
THE COLOR OF HIS SKIN OR HIS BELIEFS).

If I am to teach him values then I must let he see me living those same values.
Values have to lived to be of worth, as do teachings by example. Maths and
what ever else he will be taught when he starts school will be of value to him,
but the values of life will be some of the hardest lessons he will have to learn.

“Ethan, lets us put away the ball for a minute, Poppie would like to talk to you…”