IV. What would have happened if . . .

IV. What would have happened if . . .

            Imagine that a Bridge-Blocker had gotten to Columbus before he set out on his journey, wagged her finger in his face and shouted, “Look before you leap!” and he listened to her. Where would we be?

            Or where would we be if the Blockers had gotten to countless others who have had to cross those bridges that led to profound discoveries that have helped shape our civilization, for good or for bad? Think of Bill Gates, Ghandi, Edison, Steve Jobs, Madame Curie, or Aunt Millificent?

            Aunt Millificent? Really? How? These are Good  Questions, not distractions.  But in order to answer the question I have to tell you a story. It will take a little time, so go get a snack if you need to. Just make sure you don’t make your computer keyboard get sticky.

            Here’s the story:

             Hobblestone was 6 years old. I believe it was in July. (Why do I believe that? Because I’m making up the story!) The weather was quite warm, even for 7 in the evening. Hobblestone and his parents were on the way home from a rather disappointing outing to a miniature golf course which apparently had seen better days and wasn’t well maintained. Fortunately, Aunt Millificent  (his mother’s older sister) was with them. So was Hobblestone’s little pal Harry—yes, the same Harry with whom he would eventually rent a summer cottage, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

            Anyway, as they were driving along they passed an outdoor ice cream stand. Hobblestone’s father suggested they stop for ice cream, and the rest of the group readily agreed, especially the two boys. No surprise there: could you imagine a time when two little boys would ever turn down a chance to stop for ice cream?

            Hobblestone went first, and asked for a mint chocolate chip cone. He always picked mint chocolate chip, ever since he discovered it was such a delightful phrase to roll off his tongue. He used to over-dramatize it, and over-accentuate the T’s. Try it, and make sure you pronounce the T’s very clearly: minT-chocolaTe-chip. It is rather tantalizing, isn’t it? Anyway, Hobblestone was adorably cute when he said it, especially with that accented “T” thing he did, and it usually made the others giggle a bit. (Hobblestone liked to have fun with words.)  I think that was why he always ordered that flavor—just so he could get a bit of special attention and become the star of the show, even if only briefly.

The chuckles didn’t last long, however.  “I’m sorry, little guy, but we’re all out of mint chocolate chip today,” said the teen on the other side of the window. Gasp!  The group grew silent, waiting to see what was going to happen.

            Just think: what could possibly happen when a 6-year-old boy is told that he can’t have what he wants? You’ve got it: Temper Tantrum!  His parents sighed with a “here we go again” look on their faces, since this was happening far too often lately. Even young Harry rolled his eyes as Hobbestone squeezed his fists together (well, actually, he scrunched them, if you know what I mean), pulled in his lips, started to turn red and raised his leg to stamp his foot, and . . . I’ll spare you the rest of the awful details and cut to the next scene.

            It didn’t take too long before his father took him back to the car for a “time out,”  (definitely not a spanking—he didn’t believe in that!) while his mother smiled apologetically to the other people around the stand, most of whom had stopped licking their own ice cream cones around the time of Hobblestone’s third shriek. She turned to Harry (who was around so much she considered him to be a second son,) to ask him what flavor he would like (chocolate).  Soon, Harry was carefully slurping away. He didn’t want to let any of the ice cream drip on his fingers. He hated having sticky fingers, and napkins never really helped. Actually, they tended to stick to his fingers as well, making an even bigger mess.

Meanwhile, Aunt Millificent stood quietly with a pensive look on her face, and gently patted Mother on the back in a gesture of support, thinking of what she could do to help. (Something you should know about Aunt Millificent: at a young age she promised herself that she would be being the Best Big Sister in the World, was always looking for ways to protect her sisterand to do things to make her life easier, especially when  Hobblestone was a bit too much to handle.

 “What am I going to do?” asked the mother. “This has been going on for a few weeks now. What can I do? Do I have to just grin and bear it until he decides to grow up, or punish him, or . . .????”
            Aunt Millificent to the rescue: “I’ve got an idea,” she said, even though she didn’t have the foggiest notion what to do, but decided to plunge in anyway. Aunt Millificent, by the way, is a champion plunger, a strong believer in the phrase “leap and the net will appear.”That pretty much defined the way she lived her life, especially at times when some special measure of creativity was needed in order to solve a problem.  In fact, she had found out from experience that once she sets her mind to accomplishing something, and takes the first few steps, all sorts of things—ideas, answers, solutions, advice, resources-- ending up practically dropping into her lap as if by magic.

Aunt Millificent didn’t think it was magic, however. Being a woman of Great Faith, she always gave the credit to God who, she believed, was looking out for her and wanted to help her do good things in the world. Some people who are not comfortable with God-talk, might express it otherwise in terms of Providence, or a force for good in the universe. Some, to be sure, would ascribe the whole thing to luck, chance or coincidence.

How do you look at the whole matter?  And is your opinion something that can be proven, or is it just your opinion that you’ve decided to respect as Absolute Fact? Just something to think about.  And why I’m in the mood to ask questions, here are two more: Do you have an “Aunt Millificent” in your life? Another question: Are you an Aunt “Millificent” to anyone else?

            Where were we? Oh yes, Aunt Millificent.  She uttered a silent prayer for guidance, and almost immediately an idea came to her: “Why don’t you pack him a little bag and I’ll take him home with me for the weekend? The change of scenery will do him good, and I have a trick up my sleeve that might help,” she suggested.

And so, Millificent set off on what she considered to be an adventure. (a nice way to look at bridges when they take the form of challenges that happen to appear) At this point, she didn’t know what she was going to do except that she was going to take the dear boy for the weekend, and that she would be especially attentive to what sort of solution presented itself to her once they were back home. As for tricks up sleeves? She didn’t have sleeves, because the weather was very warm. And as for the tricks, they would come when they needed to, or so she thought. She was sure something would come up at the right time.

Hmmm . . . Isn’t it nice to live with that level of trust? Or is she hopelessly naïve? What is your opinion? And can you prove it as fact?”

That’s enough for now. What happened over the weekend? You’ll just have to wait and see. I haven’t crossed that bridge yet, but I’m sure something will come up.

            You can rest assured, however, that the following things will not be coming up as we make our way through our story: How Ben and Jerry got started? Summer fashions in the 80’s; Miniature golf: friend or foe?