Golden Touch CRAPS

So the beautiful AP and I were baby sitting our two grandchildren, John Charles who is five and Danielle who is three, and I decided I needed a break from entertaining and I would show them a movie.

"What do you want to see?" I asked.

"King Kong!" replied John. Danielle nodded her head and whispered, "Yes."

"How about Jurassic Park three?" I asked. "You haven't seen that yet."

"It's too bloody. I saw a scene," said John Charles. Danielle shook her head and said, "No."

"King Kong, it is," I said.

So I put the DVD in and John Charles said, "Go to the scene where King Kong appears. The other stuff is boring."

"What do you consider the other stuff?" I asked.

"The love stuff and kissing. And the rest of the story. I want to see King Kong and the fighting scenes but I don't want to see King Kong killed at the end," said John Charles.

"Okay, I'm fast forwarding it," I said. "Here we go!"

"Wait," said John Charles, "we need guns." He got up off the couch and went to his room to get pistols - one for me, one for Danielle, and two for him. "Okay," he said.

And Kong appeared. This was the new King Kong, an excellent movie even though it lacked the magic of the old King Kong, but John Charles loved this version so this version it was.

As Kong grabbed Ann Darrow, John Charles started shooting at the screen - so I started shooting at the screen and Danielle started shooting at the screen. When the scene and our shooting ended, I asked him: "I thought you liked King Kong?"

"I don't like him in that part. He looks mean," said John Charles and Danielle nodded her head in agreement.

"The dinosaurs are coming," said John Charles. "We need more guns."

Danielle joined him in trekking up to his room and then an arsenal appeared. They had to make three trips. They came down with an assortment of guns; old western guns, rifles, a bazooka, and space-age laser guns. John even brought down a Star Wars light saber that didn't light up because the battery was dead.

We laid out the guns on the floor and John Charles said when the dinosaurs appeared we had to shoot with everything we have. "They are big and mean and they like to kill everything in their path!" he said.

He said ‘everything in their path' and I had to smile. John Charles picks up expressions immediately. His father had said ‘everything in their path' once and John Charles had used that expression ever since. Unfortunately, he now had other expressions that he had learned in nursery school from the other kids: "what a behind she has," "I have a big wiener," "I'll kick your ass," along with other, not-so-supercharged phrases. I guess even at five years old, he was beginning his trek from the Garden of Eden into the real world.

So the three of us took turns with all the guns and John Charles even made some thrusts and parries with the light sword at the dinosaurs. I stopped the DVD when Kong started climbing the Empire State Building because he didn't want to see King Kong killed.

I did wonder, and do wonder, what his concept of death is at five years old. I know what mine is when it comes to him - he's growing up and beginning to lose his innocence.