Kids...

I was sitting on my bed, reading a book, listening to my fan and feeling pretty dang good when I heard a rattling sound followed with a thump outside of my window. I held my place in my book with my finger and I cocked my ear to the side for a moment or two and when the sounds didn’t return, I got back to reading.

Not four lines back into my book, I heard another thump. I leaned up in my bed, pulled my curtain aside, and peered into my back yard. There I saw two kids underneath the coconut tree that sits on our property. One was knocking down coconuts, while the other was gathering them up and throwing them over the fence. One saw me looking at them and yelled at his friend. By the time that I had got outside they had vanished — with my coconuts.

Cheeky kids.

I was walking down the street with a friend when I heard shouting from around a corner. I turned into a side street and saw about eight pairs of kids wheel-barrow racing. Their faces were all alight with smiles. The race started out even, hands slapping the pavement like horse’s hooves around a race track, when a pair that consisted of an older kid and a younger kid took the lead. The older kid just picked up his tiny partner and sprinted to the finish. Everyone laughed at the joke.

Fun kids.

I was eating lunch at a restaurant that overlooked the lagoon. It was a very hot day and outside of my window, I saw a group of kids leaping off of a cement dock into the lagoon. They looked so happy, and most of all very cool, so I cleared out the pockets of my shorts, took off my shirt and ran out to join them.

“Who are you?” one kid asked.

“I am Tim,” I said. “Can I swim with you.”

“Well I am in charge of this,” the kid — all of seven — said to me. “And that will be no problem.”
I hesitated in my jump, pretending to be scared to get laughs from the kids.

“You just got to go like this,” the lead kid said and did a running flip into the water.

Athletic kids.

I was mowing my lawn when a boy came out and started to assist me in pushing the mower. Whenever I turned it off to pick up some trash we had accidently shredded up, he would stoop down with me to pick it up. Then, when the mower engine was turned off, he would make the sound with his lips.

Helpful kids.

I went spear fishing with some friends and we had a pretty successful day. As with any time that you catch reef fish here, we asked some local kids what was good to eat and what was not. Most of the fish we caught were spiny red ones.

“Are these good to eat?” I asked a boy of about 10.

“No, these red ones will kill you if you eat them,” he told me very seriously. I was very disappointed but I didn’t feel like risking it and dying because I had eaten poisonous reef fish so I took them off of my ele, the wire belt I wear to hold the fish I catch, and dropped all of the offending fish onto the sand. The little boy and his friends gathered up those fish and headed away.

“What will you do with the fish?” I asked.

“We will either eat them or sell them,” he told me.

“I thought that you said they were poisonous,” I said.

“Oh, they are, but only in the eye and the tail,” he said. “We will just cut these off before we eat.”

Smart kids.

Anywhere I go I see children and they are always excited about it. They run out of their yards and away from their games to ask me what my name is and to just say hi. They come and they hold my hand and give me high-fives.

Cute kids.

The love you give comes back in the end.
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