Predictions

Coming home from martial arts lessons tonight, the boy was talking about cars.

Initially, he was wondering how to tell if rare cars are old cars or just new cars that haven’t been around for long yet. He uses the term “rare” a lot lately. He seems to be fascinated by the concept, always wondering what the most “rare” thing might be whether it’s a car or an animal or a food or whatever.

He figured a kid like himself wouldn’t be able to tell the difference because he hasn’t seen enough cars to know what’s knew versus what’s old. I got him to think a bit about characteristics of old cars versus new cars. He seems to think old cars are boxier than new cars.

Then he was wondering if “horses still towed things” when I was a kid. He quickly corrected himself: “Oh, no, cars were around in the 1800’s so horses probably weren’t pulling things when you were a kid.” I paraphrase, but that’s the gist of what he said. I went on to suggest that his grandparents might have grown up with horses still towing things. I know my Grandfather delivered milk using a horse-drawn buggy of some sort.

Then he asked if things always “evolve,” which seemed like a million-dollar word coming out of his mouth. But he used it correctly. I told him how cars have changed over the years, how radios weren’t always digital and the like. Finally, he said “I think cars will be different when I’m grown up. I think you’ll just have to push a button to start them and I think that you’ll just have to say things like ‘Air Conditioning On’ to make them happen.”

He might not have to wait that long for that list to come true.

It struck me then that was the first time I’d had such a conversation with him. It was less about me answering questions and more of an exchange. It’s not like we were discussing philosophy, but we were having a talk about, well, nothing in particular.

If I play my cards right, it’ll be the first of many.