It's interesting to me how we revisit our parents upon our children, accidentally and incidentally. I was stopping in the local grocery whose name is the non-gerund form of that word plus shop. I guess I lost track of the time as I was surprised at the number of cars in the lot in front of the building.
I don't circle the lot looking for a 'really close' spot-do you know people like that? They always make me smile. If they have a passenger I'll bet they're tempted to have them get out and stand in front of the sliding doors holding them wide open to see if the vehicle will pass through them into the store. That would be cool, would it not?
A mom and a small child of three, maybe four, I'm not really sure (I used to be an expert on small children, being in the biz and having two myself and all, but those days are decades ago) but I think he was a boy, were heading towards the entrance. The mom was going over in her head her grocery list while he was skittering to keep up with her.
Our moms did it to us--they are holding the child's left hand with their right hand. Due to manufacturing difficulties, the child's hand and arm come just barely to the top of his head--Mom's hand and arm reach only to mid-thigh so one of the two is on tiptoes at high speed where ever we go.
I hailed the woman and pushed a cart from the corral towards her and offered it to her for the child. She glared for just a moment and then relented as she picked him up and put him in the seat and, I watched, buckled him in.
In twenty years when you see a young man walking down the street NOT dragging his left hand on the ground, that's the toddler I helped out today. Go ahead and wave, he'll be able to wave back as both arms will be the same length.
-bill kenny
No comments:
Post a Comment