This morning I took my great-granddaughters out for breakfast. They are four and six years old and have that special wisdom of children who are curious about everything. They keep this jaded old granny on her toes for sure. When I picked them up their mom had them dressed up in pretty dresses, straw hats, sunglasses and their favorite shoes. They were a hit at the restaurant with oh-so-cute comments all around us. I learned from the four-year-old that Fruity Pebbles are better without milk and that cats are faster than dogs. The six-year-old wanted to know if the sky dies. Well, eventually everything that lives also dies, but for the sky I suspect it takes a long time. She explained to me that Pluto must have died because it isn’t a planet anymore because it moved too far from the sun and somebody made it stop being a planet. I was also informed that shooting stars die before they hit the ground. We talked about stars that we see are really just the light from stars that died a long time ago but the light still shines for a long time. I don’t recall this from my first-grade years, but then that was a very long time ago.

We returned to my house for a few hours of play before taking them home. We had purchased new toys at the gift shop that took up a little time before changing to hopscotch and exploring the neighborhood for a while. The fallen leaf collection is still in the back seat of my car but I drew the line at trying to save the feathers of a bird that appeared to have tangled with a cat. I delivered them back to mom and dad and having gotten a kiss from their baby brother headed home to wind down a bit with the husband.

It is too hot and humid outside for me so I entertained myself with some television. On Saturdays I usually catch up on recorded Bill Mahar episodes and other items of interest. Rachel Madow’s documentary From Russia with Lev is worth watching. I already knew some of this, but not to the extent she reveals. I recommend it as a way to exercise the brain. I have found that there is more real information in late-night comedy than in news broadcasts and I rarely learn anything new from celebrity interviews and nearly nothing from paid political ads.

Learning, I think, should be a lifelong strive for wisdom. I grew up in a small town and then moved to another small town where I still live. Many of the people I have known have travelled away from their hometown only for vacations to places like Disney World or a concert not too far away. This is not the best way to learn about the world. There is much more of it than our little bit of ground and neighbors who are not much different from us. I am grateful to have seen at least part of this country and met people from other nations and cultures. And, grateful for books. Books about everything are free to read at the library and they can take you to anywhere your imagination allows. My hope for the great grandbabies is that they travel, and read and meet people who are very, very different from themselves. That they hear and maybe learn languages from the rest of the world. That when they are old like me they still want to know more.