The Three Acre Universe

By David W. McDaniel

I have always lived in old houses filled with old things - battered tavern tables, rickety old crofter's cabinets, threadbare rugs. I've always liked the faded tones of 19th century dyes, the sheen of worn woodwork.

So it was quite a shock when my son's arrival was followed by kindly gifts of primary colored plastics...toys in hectic yellow or flame red...shelving in smurf blue. Our home burst into vivid bloom, as sudden as the blaze of sunflowers in Krista's field.

"These toys are not us" - I must have thought this thought a thousand times. But Patrick likes them and I am grateful for anything that occupies his attention and allows mommy to have a few minutes of much needed respite...even if only until a computer chip crashes or the plastic fractures in a manner to defy glue.

Ferreting in Patrick's toy box, I feel as if I am turning compost. The top layer of toys are intact yet the objects underneath are in various stages of decomposition.

Kneeling amid the debris, I'm struck by the shear quantity of material possessions our little boy has already exhausted. I'm thankful for the affluence and generosity cushioning his childhood, yet I wonder if the things he have been given take away from...something.
Modern toys don't leave much room for imagination. Computer chips do all the thinking, cartoon charecters come pre-scripted and every doll seems to trail a "comet's tail" of must have accessories.

The most memorable playthings of my West Virginia childhood didn't come from the minds of inventors or the local Toys-R-Us store. No, they were my mother's inspiration. Her spontaneous creations expanded my world far beyond the three acres contained by the woodline and hillside.

"Let's tour our estate", she'd say...and we would. Lingering to learn the stories each rock had to tell. There was a poetry in the way she saw the world. A lizard basking on a rock would become the hero of a dragon's tale. The serrated fungus on a fallen branch was a ferry's staircase leading to a secret, mystical realm.

One day my mother should me how a daisy seemed to have a face, while an upside-down azalea bloom looked like a flowncy evening gown. You could dress the daisy in the azalea and send her off to the ball like Cinderella.

Our yard encompassed a parallel universe. I divided the garden into countries and then plotted their elaborate fates. England was the narrowside passage the sun never quite seemed to reach - around toward the front of our L-shaped porch where all the tiger lillies were in bloom became France. The expance of level grass just along the ridge was Australia...good for an ill-fated saga of exploration in which pelargonium people died as had so many Australian explorers.

In the autumn, changing foliage inspired a game of chapeau shop. A large crimson leaf might become a flamboyant picture hat while a small sepia would be a sophisticated pillbox. None of these games required a cash outlay. No, there instigation demanded nothing more then the expendature of my mother's time. When I examine the pricy toys Patrick has in his arsennel, it seems the point is they require no parental time at all.

Some are cheery automatons that speak to Patrick at the press of a button or the wave of a hand pass a sensor...squeeze here...tickle there. Talking books and troops of anthropomorphized cartoon characters...one which exclaims "let's pick a friend to shop with".

Outside, swift frogs glisten in pond shallows, a rustle in the grass promises a glimpse of field mice to the keen-eyed observer. Thinking about my childhood days, I take Patrick by the hand.

"Let's go shopping together", I'll tell him. "There's a tree in the field where we can buy a realy sharp chapeau".