Little Things Have a Big Payoff

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
of the editorial page staff
published by the StarTribune
March 15, 1958


   IT WOULD profit us to be more like children.
   Many of the current bedevilments--hate, prejudice, jealousy and greed--would vanish if we could recapture the attitudes of childhood.
   But we grow older and get blase and sophisticated, harassed and busy.  Responsibilities close in and so does immunity to small satisfactions that, when savored to the full, make our stay on earth not only endurable but exhilarating.
   If life were as thrill-packed for me as it is for my 9-year-old I'd resent every hour spent in sleep.  I'd want to be always alive to what was going on.

   WHAT HE has that I haven't is unflagging curiosity and energy, almost complete freedom from worry, anticipation of tomorrow and an enthusiasm for trifling events--not trifling to him but to me.
   He was bubbling for days while he and some school companions planned a talent show.  At home he could talk of little else.  And he practiced diligently to make his instrumental contribution to the program adequate.
   I'm confident that this projection of his talent will nourish him a long time--that he will look back years from now at this event with both amusement and satisfaction.
   His school's annual hobby show rates mention in this regard, too.  It's not of staggering importance, although it is amazing what children can do in art, cooking, carpentry, modeling and the like under parental direction.  What makes it meaningful is the thrill of accomplishment, the fillip to pride.  The hobby show becomes a tradition, with preparation for it a family-welding enterprise--a little thing but long remembered.

   LOOK BACK and you must agree that the stand-out events, from an emotional and enriching point of view, are in the fabric of routine living.
   I'll always enjoy reliving a long-ago reunion we had when my mother and sister returned home from a month's visit in Indiana.  Fresh in memory, too, is the reception my 2-year old daughter gave me after a dreary, depression-imposed separation.  Joy was so deep in her eyes that it shook me, and life at that moment was as good as life ever gets.  It hit a similar high last fall when two grandsons I hadn't seen for weeks erupted from a car and raced to me in wild greeting.
   Another memory I wouldn't sell for gold goes back 11 winters when I helped my older son deliver Sunday  papers.  The weather was invariably wicked and even then I was beyond physical prime.  I dreaded that early Sabbath endeavor acutely but in retrospect I'm deeply grateful for it.  The father-son bond grew firmer.  Such is the profit in small experiences.

   THE PERSON who looks ahead can dismiss the boners, embarrassments and regrets of yesterday and start today with a fresh, uncluttered outlook.  He's to be envied.  But if he can't look back and recapture life's small joys he's to be pitied, too.
   The pitfall for those who have this capacity lies in the fact that they retain the unpleasant.  There are bruises as well as balms.  The present that isn't pleasant can become the corrosive past.
   I'd like to have back a recent late afternoon when spring showed promise of return and my son asked me to play catch.  I demurred.  It was too chilly and I was tired.  Maybe we could play tomorrow.
   I wish I hadn't rejected his small request.  The opportunity to play catch with your boy is not a small one.  The tomorrows don't continue forever.  There comes a time when you wish he would ask you to play--but he won't.  He'll have too many more compelling interests.
   I've been through this once and I know.

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