“What was wonderful about childhood is that anything in it was a wonder. It was not merely a world full of miracles; it was a miraculous world.”
I was reminded of this sentiment by the great British author and philosopher G.K. Chesterton when we took two grandsons to a local elementary school playground to ride their new EzyRoller, which bills itself as “a pedal-free toy that moves like a snake with right-left leg movements.”
“Curve your way” to new adventures and fun is their motto. There are no motors, no gears and no handlebars. The rig was propelled solely by the leg-pumping power of the boys as they sat on a seat and gripped two handles on each side, one equipped with a safety brake for good measure.
To those of us in the older generation, it was a welcome relief to see such a non-high tech, non-video playing device that got kids out of the house, even though it was still quite a bit nippy for North Carolina a week removed from Christmas Day.
I don’t understand physics, but something about pumping the front end of the four-wheeled contraption made it move forward, even up a slight, steady incline. The more the boys pumped, the faster the rig would go. Of course, we grandparents loved seeing them get some healthy exercise outside of the house “just like we did in the good old days!”
What really caught my attention, however, was when the boys started riding aimlessly around the playground, sometimes in circles and sometimes in figure-eight patterns, like the ones I remember from basketball practices long ago.
As they did so, seemingly without a care in the world, they would sometimes look like they were about to crash into one another, only to both steer away at the last possible second to avoid contact. I got up to walk over to tell them to be careful, only to realize they were in some sort of trance performing a little boy’s ballet where they ― and only they ―knew what their next moves were going to be and when they were going to do it.
I was captivated by the grace and beauty of their synchronization over those few minutes, although it seemed much, much longer.
One of the grandsons laid back, looked up to the sky and held his hands out to the side as if he was free-falling and kept pumping away. The other grandson then followed suit and kept making circles and ― somehow, in ways only known to them and perhaps God ― never hit each other for another several minutes.
It was as if each EzyRoller had a magnet with the opposite repelling power that kept them from colliding whenever they got near each other.
I was reminded of the time when I was mesmerized by some third graders near our home long ago in Northern Virginia. They were making the same graceful circles on a tennis court, and I wondered what they could have possibly been riding to make such fluid, balletic movements. As I got closer, I saw they were on rollerblades, which I never attempted to ride ― ever.
However, while gliding on a row of small wheels, they were throwing a lacrosse ball back and forth with each other ― all the while cradling and throwing the ball with their sticks.
Cradling and throwing a lacrosse ball is no easy task to master. But these kids were doing that while rollerblading for a good twenty minutes.
When I got to the tennis court, I asked them if they knew what they were doing. “Just throwing the lacrosse ball around, Mr. Hill,” one said as if that was all they were doing.
“Yes,” I said, “I can see that. But did you know that it is supposed to be much harder to do while you are rollerblading?”
They looked at me dumbfounded, as if to say: “Why are you even asking this question? We were just having fun!”
There is something profoundly moving about watching kids at play, as Chesterton observed. There’s a God-given wonder seeing the God-given joy that comes to them instinctively as they just play.
Ferris Bueller, who might be mistaken by future historians as an American philosopher of sorts, got it right when he said: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Go watch some kids riding their EzyRollers or rollerblading while throwing a lacrosse ball around. It will be a gift to you that will put politics and adult life into proper perspective.
