Improvisation

I noticed this photo in a recent report on Art In The Park in Sandy Springs:

and you know what? This kid is playing with a dead fish.

The use of an improvised toy brought back memories. When I was a kid we were so broke - if a branch didn’t fall off a tree in our yard overnight I didn’t have anything to play with all day.

This kid’s folks have gotten even more thrifty and creative: it’s a pet, it’s a toy – its dinner! Genius. That right there is stretching a recession dollar.

It's nice to see parents these days taking a page from my parents' book. One Christmas I didn’t get anything that didn’t come from a garage sale. Later in life Mom used to tell people that and laugh “Heh, heh. He never even wondered why nothing came in a box and everything had scratches on it! Heh, heh.” She thought that was hilarious.

The joke was on me I guess. I was also allergic to milk and eggs – so, I got to be the weird dietary kid without new toys.

Thanks a lot, God.

You could be the lumpy weird kid that smelled like curry and talked about unicorns and if you had cool enough stuff to play with – everybody was your friend. You’d get home from school and four kids would be standing in your front yard waiting on you to break out the radio-controlled cars (I still want one). Chances are good you drove right past me in my front yard frantically waving a magnolia limb over my head.

Later in life this kid’s own parents will almost certainly tease him with this photo, but the joke’s still on them: you should be really nice to the kid who’s going to pick out your retirement home.