Being Six Again

Posted by Roie R. Black on Wed 25 October 2017

Do you remember what things you thought about when you were six. Some of those things were crazy, but fun.

Inventing things

Kids always want things they do not have. They even want things that do not exist. That does not stop them from wanting those things anyway!

"Hey, Tommy, let's invent something."

"Like what?"

"I don't now, how about something that can dissolve anything, that would be cool."

"Maybe, but what are we going to put it in?"

"Hmmm, I did not think about that. If we invent this stuff, we are going to have a problem!"

"We sure will. That stuff will sink to the ground, and disolve its way to the center of the Earth."

"Yep. And then it will start eating the entire Earth. Not cool!

Hey Tommy, let's not invent that stuff, OK?"

That falls into the same category as the irresistible force meeting the unmovable object, something else we thought about when "Superman" hit the planet!

Solving the Energy Crisis

In another session, Tommy and I were thinking about nuclear reactors, which were new enough they were in the news all the time. The USS Nautilus was not yet swimming around, but folks were talking about nuclear power.

"Hey Tommy, wouldn't it be neat to build a nuclear power station and put it in a lunch box?"

"That sounds cool, we could use it to power our house, then plug it into our car and power that. Shoot, we could take it anywhere."

"Hmmm, but what would happen if it acted up. What do they call that, 'going critical' or something like that?"

"Yep, that is what they say. If it goes out of control it could blow up and wipe out all of our town. That would be messy!"

"Right. I know, lets invent a rubber balloon that can only stretch so far, and no matter what, it cannot expand further."

"What do we do with that?"

"Easy, we put the lunch box in the balloon. Then if it blows up it will only wipe out you and a small space around you."

"I would rather it blew up you, not me".

"Yeah, yeah! Actually, that would work, and sometimes we would lose a few folks. There are too many folks around anyway!"

Hmmm, those kids must have been living in Austin.

Art Linkletter

Art used to host a TV show where he interviewed kids around this age. Some of what they said and thought was hilarious. Shoot, their brains had not congealed yet, they were just learning how the world works. Even better, they did not know their idea were crazy. Only us older folks know that.

Know what, sometimes the ideas kids come up with might work, if only we can overcome just "knowing" that they are silly. The coolest inventions came out of someone's mind, leaving the rest of us wondering why we did not think of that!

Where is my lunch box.

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