Playing Disk Golf With My Grandson

My eight-year-old grandson Kathan and I have found the perfect sport for us: Disk Golf.  Disk golf (Frisbee golf) is just like playing regular golf, but the 'hole' is a metal-chain contraption that you throw or toss the disk into, called the Pole Hole. You play on a course where you have a starting line, fairway, and hole (sort of like the putting green). Each leg of the course has its own par. And there are many obstacles, mainly trees and bushes and, on my course, water obstacles (ponds).

Playing disk golf with an eight-year-old is the true meaning of 'play.' Par has no meaning. We just throw the disk toward the Pole Hole, however many throws it takes. When we do reach the hole and land the disk in the metal-chain contraption, we do a happy dance.

The rules or tools often change as we go along. One day, Kathan decided to throw pine cones, instead of the disk, at the hole. And the pine cones had to fall through the top of the hole instead of the open area around the circumference of the hole, making it a little more challenging.

Throwing the disk into obstacles or hazards actually makes the game more fun. Watching the disk veer off into the woods, then finding the disk, and throwing it out of the woods, or should I say trying to throw it out of the woods, but hitting a tree or tree branch, bouncing the disk back into the woods, is hilarious.

We often stop at one hole and throw the disk over and over again at the same metal-chain contraption. We deliberately try throwing around a tree or between two trees that are close together, or climb a hill to throw from. It gives us a lot of practice. And we need it. Sometimes we throw the disk and it flies no more than ten or fifteen feet. No problem. Who cares? We are happy when the disk lands on the ground and rolls an extra five or ten feet.

Our playing Disk Golf is challenging and non-world-shattering. There is no winner or loser. There is no score. There is only the joy of good company and childlike play. It's perfect for me, and natural for him.

Introduction to Disk Golf

On Playing "Memory" with My Six-year-old Grandson (or How to Stay Young?)

One of Kathan's Christmas presents last month was the game of Memory.

Something older people (at least this older person does sometimes) tend to worry about is their memory. How good is my memory? How quickly or slowly am I remembering things? How quickly or slowly am I losing my memory? Should I be playing crossword puzzles or Sudoku, or taking special vitamins or secret-formula concoctions, or eating certain foods, all to help save my memory? What will happen to me if my memory fails? These are not questions that are easily answered. And, the thought of losing my memory is scary.

Playing Memory with my grandson gives me much to think about. We've played the game maybe thirty times now, and Kathan has won twenty-nine of those games. I won my first game just a couple of days ago. How? It was plain dumb luck. So even older people can get lucky.

Kathan likes to play against me because, and I admit it, I'm easy to beat.

The question is: do I have a poor memory? I honestly don't know.

The first draft of this post was written a couple of years ago and never posted. Bad me, right. I'm not going to say I forgot about it, but maybe I did. Anyway, it seems just as relevant (to me) now as it did then. We have played more games of Memory since then, and, yes, he still beats me every time. Now we also play other games, games I fair better at: Connect Four and Trouble. But Memory is still my nemesis. Ugh. Where are my memory pills?

Life is always full of changes

I retired two years ago, but I've struggled to get any writing done, because I've been caring for my grandchildren. I love my grandchildren dearly, but it was frustrating not being able to get much work done, very frustrating. I always knew that they would eventually be in school, and I would have more time to write, but that wasn't enough to make me happy. Afterall, I'm getting older each year. Who knows how much time I have left? I certainly don't.

All of that has changed now. My daughter and her family moved to Georgia. And my grandson Kathan started preschool yesterday. I was so out of my element yesterday, I almost didn't know what to do. I had trouble letting go of the stress I've been under for the past two years. Believe me, if you don't know it, raising todlers is stressful, especially when you're in your early sixties. I rarely sat down for more than one or two minutes at a time without having to jump up and do something for one or all of them. My days of caring for them started early and ended late. I've listened to and watched more Sesame Street, Dorothy The Dinosaur, The Wiggles, Caillou, etc., etc., than I ever want to see again.

I was worried about Kathan going to school. I was afraid especially that he would cry when I left him, and his going to school would be stressful for me too and I'd feel guilty about it. No way. Not only did he not cry when I dropped him off at the school, he was happy and joined in with the other kids in their activities without even a look back. Last night, when I put him to bed, he said he wanted to go to school again. This morning, as I was unbuckling him from his carseat at school, he said, "Thank you for bringing me to school, grand pe." It almost brings tears to my eyes as I write this.

I'm still having trouble dealing with the freedom. I mean, I can really do things without trying to get them done in a hurry, without little kids hanging on me, without worrying that I've only got an hour to work, so I must get something done. I mean, this is unreal. I worked two solid hours on my writing yesterday, and I've worked for an hour or more this morning. It's just incredible. And I still have several hours ahead of me to do what I want. I mean, I feel like I'm free. And freedom feels good.

Kathan's drawings. Are they art?

When I watch my two-year-old grandson Kathan drawing (he calls it "colors"), it's obvious something is going on in his head. He's total concentration. What he's thinking, I have no idea. I suppose he's discovering as he draws--he's one with the drawing. There' no separation between him and the act of drawing and the drawing itself; it's all of one process. It's as William Butler Yeats says in "Among School Children":

             O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
             How can we know the dancer from the dance?

I'm sure Kathan's not working from a planned design. I don't think he thinks of what he's doing as art. I think he's fascinated by desgn, shape, color, and relationships without thinking about those concepts. He has no such words in his vocabulary. They are just automatically within his range of understanding.

To an adult, it may look like scribbling. I don't think I could scribble as well as Kathan 'scribbles,' if that's what it is. When I scribble, I'm aware that I'm scribbling, and I try to make it beautiful, graceful, colorful, and I may succeed. Or, I may not. Kathan succeeds every time.

I've heard it said that children are natural born artists, and we adults kill that natural talent. It takes a special adult to let a natural artist work. We want to implant our notions of art into them. We want them to do it our way. Maybe we should be doing it their way.

Art?

Is it art? These are two drawings by my two-year-old grandson Kathan. I see balance, organization, symmetry--in short, I see beauty. I'm a doting grandfather. I'm blind to the truth, whatever it is.

I'm not asking you to tell me whether Kathan's drawings are art. I'm merely using them as an example of the difficulty we have in knowing whether the fiction we write is excellent, good, poor, lousy. We need the help of others. We really don't want to go it alone. We need validation.

Finding true objectivity comes from those who don't know us. Those who know us are not usually objective enough to give an unbiased assessment. Yet, that is exactly where most of us begin seeking validation. We begin with ourselves, using the most objectivity we can. Then we usually turn to friends and relatives, who usually 'love' what we've written. Then we turn to non-family members and strangers. This last step is crucial. We can skip it and self-publish, and we might be okay. But it's probably a poor decision. Finding true objectivity is difficult. In the final analysis, it's the reading public who gives the final answer.

Writing groups can be helpful in the writing process, but even they are not objective enough to give an unbiased assessment. One of the best things to do is to find a Beta reader to read the finished product before seeking publication. The best Beta reader is a sort of double-blind situation. The writer doesn't know who the Beta reader is, and the Beta reader doesn't know who the writer is. This requires an intermediary. I've yet to find a Beta reader who meets that final requirement. The closest I've come is entering portions of my writing in contests, and that is very educational. That's about as "real as it gets."

What would Kathan say about all of this? Just look below.