6. In preschool when we had free playtime inside the entire group of boys would rush to the toy shelf for the most desirable toys. Getting the right toy could make you the alpha male of the day. The two “power toys” were the big wooden dump truck and the “big cow.” The truck was big enough that you could put your knees in the back and ride it around. It could haul any other toy in the room. The “big cow” was the largest, most muscular horned bull out of a set of plastic cattle. When we “played cows” we all clustered around on our hands and knees on the carpeted floor. Your chosen plastic cow then became a battering ram to use against all the other cows while making “Mooooooooo!” noises or snorting. It was a very complex game. The amazing thing was to observe the power of the “big cow.” He could clear out the “corral” every time, even when in one of the weakest hands. But if he was claimed by too inferior a grip he would sometimes break loose and find a more suitable clutch. No one ever let the “big cow” win. We all fought hoof and sometimes udder for dominance but nine times out of ten the “big cow” prevailed. We had a seldom-voiced notion of magic associated with the “big cow.” We all realized it’s power and knew it was something supersensible yet real just the same.

7. When I was a kid Halley’s Comet came. A big deal, it happens only once every seventy-six years. I going through a big science/astronomy phase and was really excited. My mother took me to see it at the observatory down the road from our house. There was a long line and it was cold and at some point, there standing on line with my mother I realized that in seventy-six years, when Halley’s Comet came back again, I might be able to see it again,but I also realized that in seventy-six years my mother would certainly be dead. I had never realized such a thing before. I cried myself to sleep every night for almost a week after, but refused to say why. Finally one night, my mother came into my bedroom and sat down on my bed and said, “Who knows, I might be there with you to see the comet again,” and rubbed my head till I fell asleep. That convinced me then that there was something out there too big to understand, yet real. Whether it was God or ESP, or a mother’s love I wasn’t sure, but I knew it was real. I believed.

The next time I went to the observatory was with my wife and it was years later. There was a comet that I can’t recall the name of and we waited on line to go up in the telescope to see it. My mother was in the hospital then with lymphoma—she died before she ever got home. I think things are usually quite circular if and when you pay attention.

8. My grandmother who had been an elementary school teacher took care of me during the day. She would read to me every afternoon. We’d go to the library and get books or read the ones she had. The milk man brought milk and orange juice on Mondays and I particularly liked to read Curious George books with the orange juice. Somehow they went well together.

8. The first time I read on my own must have been when I was three or so—it was very young. It was just a book with pictures and the word of what was pictured, but I learned to go through and read the whole book myself—more an act of memorization really, but man, did I feel grown-up! In some ways I haven’t changed since that day. It couldn’t have been much after that that I really learned to read—it was well before kindergarten. My grandmother had gotten me a whole National Geographic children’s series on science and nature and we were reading my favorite part of my favorite one, which was a paragraph beneath a picture of a raccoon. She had been reading to me and she asked me if I wanted to read that page this time and I read the whole thing. She said something, like, “Good, now you know how to read. You can read anything you want now if you put your mind to it.” That was a pretty wild proclamation—even wilder because I realized it was true.

9. During the years I apprenticed and then worked as a metal smith I learned more than I have in any two year period of my life. The most important things were: 1.) it hurts when you hammer your finger; 2.) when you hammer your finger it is not an “accident”—it is your own fault; 3.) fingers only heal themselves, nothing else can heal a finger; 4.) when your finger heals itself, you are healing yourself because your finger is part of you; 5.) the hammer is better at hammering than you are, so get it started and then let it do its thing; 6.) practiced detachment from the mechanics of things prevents detachment from the art of things and fingers; 7.) art and detachment are both healing.