Tonight I came home from work and while walking toward the stairs David pulled on my arm and said, "Dad, I have something I need to talk to you about...in private." This must be serious. So I put my arm around him and listened as we walked toward my room. We laid down on the bed and stared at the ceiling fan as he recounted his life and all the great happenings in the Belmont Elementary Third Grade.
It was a winding story, sometimes I had a problem following it. But there were four main characters, David, Aaron, Lincoln, and Dave's autistic friend Henry whom David has kept at his side to help him socially grow in their class. These four boys decided to start a club. As everyone knows, you must begin with a name for a club so they adopted 'The Froggies'. The Froggies were a pretty exclusive club. Just the four of them. It only had two rules: 1) No playing football - because Aaron decided that he didn't want to play football as he had a penchant for just stealing the football during recess and running away from all the kids who do want to play. And also because David was fed up with favoritism of the regulars not throwing to him when he was open. Then 2) only certain types of walks were allowed. Think Ministry of Silly Walks if you will. Really silly walks.
This exclusive club became something of a sensation. Within a day or three nearly the entire third grade recess had aligned themselves with The Froggies and their activities. It was a massive grass roots organization that ruled the entire student population. Thank heavens they didn't know about underground crimes or there'd be a dead body and bags of cash they would have to explain away to Mrs. Sattler when the bell rang. Though perhaps they already had her on the take? While not the head of this group, DT was close enough to be in the room where it happens, if you know what I mean.
Well here's the problem, good things only last so long. And in the third grade, that's about three days. Today one of the boys decided to break the second rule. Not able to accept such blatant disregard for the sacred, Aaron just decided that he was done and stormed out. Indeed, he had no justifiable reason. He just up and walked away from the Froggies in a huff, and because "he's the popular one" Aaron ended up taking a sizable portion of the congress with him. Then Lincoln, not to be outdone, did likewise with his faction of followers. David, reticent to act rashly, yet seeing the writing on the wall, and upset that the greed and pride of his friends had led to this boy band breakup, finished The Froggies off formally. Only Henry was left standing on the playground by himself. (DT went back later to hang with him.) Those factionary groups now call themselves The Pickles and they are pretty well established over by the four square courts.
As David sat there telling me this whole sordid tale, I could feel a tinge of regret and frustration in his voice. Indeed, according to his mother, when this whole thing went down today he almost cried in public because it really did rack his little spirit. He went into great detail with me; I may never feel the pure trust of another human being as I did today when he opened up to me. He told me everything, even the parts where he confessed his own short comings. As a father, that filled me with great happiness... and sadness.
So here's the kicker in this whole story. By himself and with absolutely no prompting, he pulled out a moral and practical lesson at the end: "Dad, I guess this just goes to show you that in any leadership structure there can always be great corruption that will ruin great accomplishments."
Socrates himself couldn't have formulated that idea and said it any better and yet it was an eight year old that taught me that. I didn't even really realize how astute that observation was until later I was discussing it with his mother and she pointed it out. It really was something. I mean, I could drizzle a spit drop 11 inches down and suck it back up into my mouth before it broke at that age. David is a really great kid.
Afterwards we went to Cornbelly's and wandered in a Toy Story corn maze for a couple of hours enjoying the fall festivities. It was a great and beautiful night. David is my Tinky. I love him very much and every day more I can understand the words of the New Testament where it references Mother Mary and how 'she kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.' Or perhaps on her blog.
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