Finding Neverland

Editor's note: This article falls into a category that I refer to as a "rambling monstrosity". It was me, sitting up late in the evening, pouring my rambling thoughts into the keyboard, and the result tends to be rather disorganized and incoherent. If you'd rather read something silly, check Big Toe or Apple out. If you want something inspirational, try Kate's Prayer, Winners and Losers or Heroic Sacrifices. Even, useful software to keep little gremlins out of your computers can be found here. Or, feel free to just browse around and see what you can find.


While discussing the upcoming Gratz Fair (like a county fair back home), a friend of mine said, "I really dread going. There's no kid left in me."

Wow... What a statement. It may sound bad at first, but... when I look in the mirror, the same thing is true. The only time that I have any "kid" in me, is when I am playing with kids. Kids are wonderful things.

At Awana tonight, our friend who has a couple of dozen kids (so shoot me if I exaggerate), came in with one of the younger ones. I took him and started playing with him, holding him upside down. Before long, his older sister was dismissed from her group and came out and climbed up on my back, and I carried her out to the parking lot.

When the neighbor kids come over, they invariably pile up on top of me and push me to play with them. When I am feeling down, they force me to play, and I am better. I think... I think I was made to be around kids. Other people are different. Some, completely different.

My own kids, 11 and 7, respectively, take it by spells. Most of the time, they're mad at me for making them do things they don't want to do, and so don't feel like playing. My son, seems to have this problem quite a bit lately. When he does try to play, it's always after he's already gotten me so aggravated that I just snap at him.

My daughter is still usually pretty playful... And she loves her bedtime ritual of hugs and kisses. A lot of times, just around the house... with the family... they want to "play" when there's work to be done, and I'm the bad guy who pushes the work thing. Speaking of which - the chore from two days ago... the terrible burdensome one that I told them to do... filling the bird feeders - still hasn't been done. I need to get on them tomorrow about that.

But, around other adults, there's no "play" left in me anymore. Even around my kids, when the wife's there especially, there's no "play". That's not to say it's her fault, but she is one of the folks who are "different". She worked in a day care for a year or so, finally quitting because "she wasn't cut out for it." The kids drove her nuts.

After her accident last year, when she was back up and about, but not able to go find work yet, she kept the neighbor's kids before and after school... And the extra cash was very nice. But, every day, I'd come home and she'd be so stressed about them wanting to play too loud or too rough, or arguing, or making messes and not wanting to pick them up, or something. So the kids would all come pile on me for a while and leave her alone - but... "she wasn't cut out for it," so when the summer vacation came, and school was about to restart, she told their Mom she was finding another job. And they come only to play now.

Sometimes, that rubs off on me, too. It's hard to be playful when playing gets on people's nerves.

My grandparents had about a gazillion kids. Well, okay, maybe not. How about, seven. In my family, Mom had 3, Dad had 2, plus me and my brother between them. I was the baby. But it seemed that larger families had less money, but bigger hearts. The older kids would watch the younger ones. The younger ones knew they were loved. The older ones learned responsibility. The younger ones learned to defend themselves. Everyone grew.

In today's "downsized" families, there's one or two kids, the older one complains because the younger one gets all the attention. Both babied, because they're the only ones there. I get frustrated with it because I think my son, 11, is old enough to care for his younger sister - but invariably they fight because "she always gets away with things" and "he hit me".

I think, a dozen kids, give or take, would be about right. It wouldn't be a one-on-one battle between the two of them all the time. If nothing else, they'd all be fighting, and would distract each other enough that they wouldn't be up our behinds all day long. But more likely, to have that many, they'd have to be born fairly closely together, so there'd be no five year gap between them. The older ones wouldn't remember being an 'only child' and miss it, because by the time they're old enough to remember, they've always had little brother or little sister around. And the younger ones, they've always had older brothers and sisters who've always had baby brothers and sisters... and they'd look out for each other. And do pranks. And be mean to each other. And help each other out.

There's something to be said for such a lifestyle. I think we've made mistakes in this day and age by not having larger families who stick together. It takes special parents to be able to love that many children. For me, I feel so old and weary so much of the time anymore - and I'm only 34. The only time I feel young anymore is when there's a child who looks into my eyes with love and carefree abandon, who wants to climb up me, or play a game, or just sit and talk.

I don't know where this is going... it's just rambling - a look at how life is not, I guess. My "kid" probably left me along about the age of fourteen to fifteen. My Dad died in November, and my fifteenth birthday was the following February. The end of January, in between, was when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. I think, looking back, that I was already pretty sober before that, because of Dad, but I think that the Shuttle's influence just cemented the already sober me.

I had a wonderful childhood, to that point. Even after, life was good in many ways. We always had family around who loved us. My uncle Clarence came to live with us for a few years. School came and went. I had part time jobs here and there, always staying busy. But, did I ever take time to have fun? Well, I took pride in working, I listened to music - a very big part of my life. I read a ton of books. I found escape in many of the things which occupied my time. But, did I have fun? I bought a camera and took a million pictures (probably not much exaggeration). I was on the yearbook staff as a photographer, too. I was on the forestry team in high school, who placed 4th in the whole state of Arkansas, and 7th in a four-state competition held in Mississippi.

But, did I have fun? Did I play? I can't remember. I got out of high school. Not knowing what to do with myself. I was fifth in my class, and received a scholarship to University of Arkansas - but didn't have a car and didn't want to go and bum rides all the time when I didn't even have a clue what to major in - other than, maybe, teaching.

So I went to work, and after working for Wegner Quartz Crystal mines for a year, working in the cleaning section with Rob and xxx, who'd sometimes sneak off to the back and smoke a little something funny (and no, I didn't join in. If I had, I probably wouldn't have inhaled (smile)) while listening to Magic 105 rock-n-roll on the radio, and mowing and general maintenance around there. After getting yelled at once for the owner using his tractor and bushhog where he knew there was a well-cap and hitting it, then telling me I should have had the "foresight" to go and use a weedeater and clean up around the wellcap, and put a pole up there, with a ribbon on it, so he wouldn't have hit it. After all that, I began to decide, maybe the military is not so bad after all.

So, after a year of working, out of high school, I joined the Air Force. And worked. I loved it. I learned a lot of new stuff. I was given responsibilities because I cared to try and work above and beyond. I was "promoted" in my job even when advancement in rank was not possible - meaning that I was given opportunities to do new things, with responsibilities, even before I probably should have been - based on the work I had done.

But did I have fun? I think back, and I think not. The only time I've ever just truly enjoyed myself - let everything go - as a teen or an adult, has been around children. When I was single, and I'd go to my friend Gwen's house, and play with Michael. I'd rock him and sing silly songs and hum silly tunes. It was the coolest thing. And it didn't matter whose kids it were.

When my own came along, sitting there, bonding with them, was wonderful. Jeremy was an only child until he was almost 5. Then came Kate. Now they're both out of the 'innocent' stage - Kate told me the other week, when I told her to be careful with the new laptop because it cost several hundred dollars and if she breaks it, she has to pay, she told me, "Daddy. You can't do that. That's child abuse." She didn't just tell me this. She screamed it. She still has her "innocent" moments but she's quickly outgrowing it. I think, if there were still a baby in the house, I'd still be young. As it is, I turned 78 this year.

And, I suppose, it's not about babies at all. It's about a lot of things. I thought, when I got out of high school, that I'd go to college and come back as a teacher. I always knew that kids were the path for me. But I didn't go to college, and I didn't become a teacher. One thing, then another, put obstacles and changed my destiny. I am okay with that.

But. Over the past few years, as the kids have grown, so has my age. What does this mean? Since I was fourteen, I have lived in a world where the only magic came from children. I have tasted magic elsewhere, but it was only in passing. Nothing that would come to stay. Other people, children, other adults, they are not the source of magic at all. The magic is buried within you all the while. Children may bring it out for me, but for others, other things bring out the magic in their lives.

The question is, how do you find it? Is it even possible? I say yes. I say this with a kind of heavy heart. I slow down now, as I think of my words.

My kids, my neighbor's kids, my friend's kids, they all bring out the magic in me. They make me lighten my heart, forget my burdens for a little while, and then the magic comes forth.

Writing. Writing has always been a passion of mine. For many years it was something that lay forgotten in a corner, and when my friend Jamie suggested I start to blog, he probably had no idea of how much I really needed to do it. However, although I started off blogging with a few inspired articles, I lost my "magic" for a little while. I posted a few things just to keep it alive, but which were not really very inspired. Then, toward the end of last month, I started to toy with the idea of doing something different. I didn't know what I was going to do or where it was going to lead. I registered a second blogspot site, and started playing with the layout and format. And, one thing led to another, and now I've got a site, which has had a "write-up" already from another blogger, over in Australia, of all places, who stumbled across my site.

There's supposed to be other spots of "magic" in our lives. I have found, over time, that things can become tarnished with time. Things we believed once to be true, we find, are not quite so true. Mostly, since the age of fourteen, there's been a lot of shades of gray in my life. There've been moments of color, but when there's no "kid" left in you, no magic, what do you do? My daughter asked me, over a year ago, now "Daddy, why don't you smile anymore?" And for a while, and even now, I try, for her sake. But often, I just don't feel like it. I am too old for it. That's not to say that I have a bad life, it's just, the magic has been gone for some time.

This blogsite has improved my general outlook on life. And, a few weeks ago, I started a new one, Armadillo Creek. Look under the "links" menu to the right for the URL. It has been a blast and has brought back a lot of pleasant memories from long before the age of fourteen.

Additionally, I sent a link to "Thanksgiving" to a cousin from Mississippi whose son used to be my playmate when we'd go there at Thansgiving time and they'd come to Arkansas in the summertime for the reunion. And she sent the link on to some other cousins. Who emailed me, and we've been "chatting" off and on for a few weeks now. That's been great.

But mostly, Armadillo Creek has been the great escape. I suppose, since I've made several references to it, I should explain myself. I will tell the story here, once, but nowhere else. I wanted this thing to remain anonymous, at least, to start with, so I could do what I needed to do, without distractions. I created a town called "Armadillo Creek", based on my home town, as the child of yesteryear who had my name, would have seen and remembered it. The child is there, too, but his name, unlike mine, is Johnny Miller. There are stories and other stuff there, that are based on my memories of what life was like back in the simpler days in Armadillo Creek. When I get down and blue, and the magic is gone, I can go back to a chapter in my past, and start writing and it's back again. Almost all the characters and events in Armadillo Creek are based on people in my own life, but the names are changed, and the situations simplified somewhat.

The town created here does not and maybe never did exist, except in a young boy's innocent perceptions. There are happy memories, and very sad ones, that I have put on here. It is a work in progress. I will add things as I feel like adding them, and I am continually sticking a new entry into the idea list for some future writing. And, maybe, I'll run out of ideas one of these days, and when I do, well, maybe then I'll start real writing, and invent things. Or, maybe, I'll just quit writing about Armadillo Creek, close that book, and start a new one.

I don't know where my future lies. This has been the subject of much deep thought of late. But I do know where it started, in a simpler place, in a simpler time, in a town that some know, as Armadillo Creek. And, knowing where your roots lie is a good starting point for the future. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.