Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
-- General George S. Patton (1885 - 1945)
I think of General Patton's instruction when I think of the numerous ways my children demonstrated ingenuity over the years, and I learned from my son A.J. that it's a risky notion to doubt the ingenuity of a child.
Both of my boys loved to fish when they were young. Salt water fishing, fresh water fishing, fishing in mountain streams or large rivers, creeks, ponds...the setting didn't matter as long as the event involved a pole, a hook and a worm.
We also spent a lot of time camping and hiking -- just being in a natural, simple environment, and those camping trips nearly always lent themselves to a fishing expedition.
On one particular trip, we'd managed to get away without any bait, but A.J., age ten, with his sun-bleached hair and vivid, blue eyes had been fascinated by some magical lure he'd seen advertised on television at the time. Its properties were so astounding, that once dropped in the water and jiggled about, fish arrived in scores to attack it.
A.J. firmly believed he could create such a device to subsitute for the bait. So, he dug through a box of miscellaneous items kept in the camper for creative impulses, and pulled out a popsicle stick, a paper clip and some little purple Mardi Gras beads. I watched him methodically trim the popsickle stick into three oval-ended pieces, and then pierced the ends with an outstretched paperclip. He fastened the popscicle sticks into jiggling, hinged parts by looping the paper clips through holes and clipping them off. On one end, he attached a string of about six little purple mardi gras beads and a hook. He assured me that having no worms would not interfere with a successfull fishing expedition.
We packed up the essential gear (cookies, Koolaid and chips) and set down the path to the fishing pond. For some reason he wanted me to go along with him, and I was proud to be with this happy, gentle little boy, because I knew we were getting close to the time when he would prefer not to have Mom at his side. As I was considering this, I saw him smile at me, fishing pole slung up on his shoulder, whistling a little as we moved down an embankment to the pond.
All of a sudden I heard something entirely unfamiliar, so foreign to me that I couldn't for a moment conceive what had just happened. My little charmer, my baby boy had ... just churned up the most gutteral, spittle-producing throaty exercise I'd hoped never to witness. It landed on the ground, about a foot off the path, exactly where he intended it to go. I stood there in complete shock, temporarily forgetting the focus of our excursion. He was so darned practiced at it! Didn't it take some time to develop that skill? Didn't somebody have to demonstrate it? Hadn't I already explained to the primary SUSPECT (his brother, Nick) that spitting is unhealthy and inconsiderate?
To A.J., though, it was one of those cool, confident masculine mannerisms that announced he could handle the the fish, by gawd, so he was smiling and whistling well past the spot where I had stopped dead in my tracks.
He stopped at the edge of the water, tossed the line into the pond, and jiggled the pole a little bit, creating a little play on the hinged
popsickle sticks and dangling mardi gras beads. I remember still being speechless at his confident transition from little boy to grown little boy, and watched with amazement when he reeled three bluegill from the pond that morning.
We fried the fish over an open fire for lunch, he and I, giggling, chatting, playing until the cooking had finished. He, pleased with the success of his invention and his well-spat spittle; and I, mystified and grateful that this pleasant child was one of the gifts in my life.
