More forest cleared near the soccer complex, but soccer stayed the same.
Thursday Evening
the boy
Out Front
Spring Monday
The Boy and I have been listening to Josh Clark's The End of the World podcast, and it opens with a discussion of the Fermi Paradox, which the Boy tried to explain to his friend on the way to the pool this evening.
"See, the universe is millions of years old and..." he began when his friend cut him off: "No, it's only a few thousand years old."
"No," argued the Boy. "It's millions of years old."
"No!" his friend insisted. "It's only a few thousand years old. It's in the Bible."
At this point, I intervened: "Boys, stop arguing -- talk about something else."
On the way home, after dropping off his friend, I explained to the Boy what had happened, giving him a primer on young Earth creationism.
"But it's science!" he insisted incredulously. "There's evidence."
"But they don't accept that evidence," I explained, and he had a hard time understanding how someone doesn't accept evidence. I do too, truth be told. "It's just not worth arguing about because you won't change anyone's mind who thinks that way."
I went ahead and corrected his numbers while I was at it: "The Earth is, in fact, about 4.5 billion years old, and the universe is somewhere in the area of 13 billion years old -- much older than the couple million years you were insisting upon. I didn't correct you then because that would have meant correcting your friend, and I'm not sure how his parents would react to that."
My parents were young Earthers, too (at least for a while), but I'm not sure how they would have reacted to me coming home and announcing that one of my friend's father said indirectly that I was wrong and that the Earth is in fact much older than what they taught me. I don't imagine they would have prevented me from seeing the kid again, but if it had happened again, they might have. And certainly, very fundamentalist Christians would likely make such a move, and the Boy's relationship with his friend is much more valuable to me than what he's been taught about the universe.
The Boy, then, experienced something like what I experience regularly: that sense when among more literalist Christians that we view the world in a completely different way.
New Beginnings
The Boy is no longer a Cub Scout. That's over -- a whole phase of his life behind him. Tonight was his first meeting as a Boy Scout.
There was the requisite paperwork -- which he filled out. "This is all you, little man," I told him with a smile.
They started the meeting with introductions to the troop: "We'd like to invite our newest scouts to introduce themselves and tell us a little bit about them." E stepped forward, shyly as always, and said, "I'm E. I like soccer and guitar." After introductions, the new scouts went out with some of the older boys to learn the ropes, so to speak.
So different than Cub Scouts. Boy-run, boy-planned, boy-approved. "We're just there to make sure they do everything safely," the scoutmaster told us when we first visited back in December.
We parents didn't see the kids until they were done, wrapping everything up with their circle. In fact, tonight is likely the only night we'll stay through the whole thing. "Most parents just drop them off and then pick them up later," the assistant scoutmaster told us new parents.
"This is going to do the Boy so much good," I told K.
Saturday Evening Downtown
We spent the evening downtown, the five of us -- the two kids and the dog. It's so rare that everyone's schedules work out to let us do something like this. We'll take every opportunity we have.
Our stroll eventually led us down to the river and the new Grand Bohemian hotel which is the latest highlight of the ever-developing downtown Greenville.
Eventually we made it down the the rocky area of the river just at the edge of the main downtown park, the place both of our kids loved to run about on the rocks as little kids.
"Those days are long gone" K and I constantly remind ourselves. And yet, every now and then, the stars align,
the kids are both fascinated with the same thing, and for a brief moment, we pop back a few years in the past.
First Day Out
We had our first day out on mountain bikes today. It was a beautiful spring day with temperatures in the sixties.
It had rained a bit yesterday, so the trails were a bit muddy at times, but nothing too awful.
Overall, we did 11.59km.
Crossing Over
Talent Show
Soccer Walk
Tuesdays are long: first school, then chess club, then a rush to the soccer field to switch cars with K so she can give L my car for her to drive to volleyball while I wait with the Boy at soccer practice. I usually talk a walk and/or run. And since my knees have been troubling me again, it's more likely the former than the latter.
As the last few soccer seasons have progressed, so has the area around the soccer complex.
The red line is the route of my walk.
The central shaded area is now apartments -- it has been for a couple of years. The large shaded area to the right is now completely bare, stripped of all trees with sewage lines and curbs ready for a new housing or apartment development. The triangle to the left is the latest development victim: it's only been cleared in the last few weeks.
But still on that walk/run, one can find views like this.
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