Every Thursday afternoon, my two grandkids and I have been making up stories about imaginary places with improbable names: Planet Zobo, Planet Orcupine, and Planet Pickwick.
I figure it’ll be at least ten years before I have to admit plagiarizing Pickwick from Charles Dickens, and another five before I can joke about stealing from the best. If I make it to 85, I’ll let you know how it goes.
This all began when Briana, about to turn five, made up a superhero, and Lachlan, halfway to seven, brought her to life in a vividly detailed drawing. They have named most of the other characters as we add them and have sworn me to reluctant secrecy of their identities as they hold them up to the screen for me to see a continent away. Lachlan has also drawn and named more than one moon for each of the three planets I named: Zobo with good people, Orcupine with villains, and Pickwick for the terminally gullible still seeking bipartisanship.
Of course, I did not burden the kids with that last description, calling Pickwick instead, “the place where people go not to think.”
Yesterday’s session was longer than most, and it followed a day of absolute silence while I heavily seasoned, baked, basted, and served up a review of a history of Planet Earth disguised as a history of salt. For both reasons, I was starving for news as much as food while still chuckling at my collaboration with a six-year-old in determining the orbits of planets and moons around them.
Just then did I turn on the other screen to see a Republican congressman from Texas ask a scientist who works for the US Forest Service if it might be possible to alter the orbit of the moon or of Planet Earth to counter the effects of climate change.
As a former teacher of 25 years, I’m well acquainted with the expression, “There’s no such thing as a stupid question.”
And as someone who has worked retail for just as long, I know that it is the stupidest adage ever held, and that whoever first said it should be put before a firing squad even if his or her corpse need be dug up and propped up against a wall.
But as both, I also know that when asked such a question, you must never laugh but keep a straight face, and possibly a kindly smile while finding a way to, let’s say, “redirect” the question.
Her initial moment of silence may have been as nerve-wracking as telling, but hats off to Jennifer Eberlien for the wide smile often worn by pre-school teachers when, via Zoom, she told Louis Gohmert, one of the most vocal Trumpers in the US House, that the U.S. Forest Service would “get back” to him.
In retrospect, I wonder if the question may be more cause for celebration than ridicule. This was, after all, a Republican admitting, in effect, that climate change is a real threat. The only other threats, real or perceived, for which Republicans would move the Earth if not Heaven itself to prevent are things like voting rights, health care, and a living wage.
At the risk of sounding like an opportunist, I also wonder if my grandson may have a job waiting for him in DC. His orbital redirection skills certainly qualify him to join the staff of at least one Republican member of congress. With her knack for creating superheroes, my granddaughter, too, could well serve the staff of the Republicans from Colorado and Georgia who claim that California’s forest fires were started by Jewish space lazars.
Could Lachlan add a yarmulke to that superhero’s head? Would Briana let him?
These and other of life’s persistent questions will have to wait until next week when we return to Planet Zobo where the orbit is fixed, the rotation is consistent, the moons are good looking, and the PZ Forest Service will politely offer to “get back to you.”
-30-
This picture appeared with a blog headlined “For They Shall Inherit” last November, taken by my daughter a few months before that. Yes, they are both as spirited as they look.
Mouth of the River 