Tag'd, am I

I've been tagged by Prince Ali for the "Five Things You Miss from Childhood" thing, and I've been kicking it around for a few days. Trouble is, I'm not one to romanticize childhood or even think back on it with tremendous fondness. I didn't have a bad childhood, by any means; in fact, my childhood was just fine. But I've long believed that I've come to appreciate things in a much better way now than I had available to me then, and I've always believed that people who say of your teen years that "These are the best years of your life!" should be dope-slapped into submission.

Anyway, here's some stuff that I came up with.

1. I miss the wild black raspberry bushes in my parents' hedgerow. Berries are great. Berries you've picked yourself are better. Berries you've picked yourself that grow in the wild are the best (unless you pick the poisonous ones, in which case that's not so good at all). I spent many afternoons out there, picking the berries and eating them right off the bushes. I wonder now how those bushes are doing.

2. I miss that Star Wars was a work-in-progress.

3. I miss...geez, folks. I got nothin'. Seriously. I can't finish this quiz.

You see, here's the weird thing: I really grok adulthood. I don't really pine for the days when I had no real responsibilities and when girls were "gross" (except for that one, because you know, even when girls were gross there was always that one who wasn't), because now I've long since reached the realization that every woman is that one. (Not to be confused with that one.)

I was going to note that I miss not knowing what happened next when I read Lord of the Rings for the first time, but even so, now I like that even if I know what happens next, I'm picking up on other things: "Hey, that's an allusion to the Kalevala". Do I miss sitting around on Saturday mornings, watching Bugs Bunny? A little. But how much better is it that nowadays when I catch a Bugs Bunny cartoon, if it's one I haven't seen in a while, I'm getting jokes that sailed right over my head when I was watching them on Saturday mornings twenty-five years ago? Or how much better is it that I hear Carl Stalling's wonderful musical pastiches in those cartoons and now I know what classical works he's ripping-and-mixing? It's a damn sight better, I think.

Put it this way: youth is watching Casablanca for the very first time, but adulthood is watching Casablanca for the second time.