DILEMMA OF TIME

My favorite Catholic was John, a Mongol child, who played happily
with my brother and myself. We watched with sadness as we moved away
from him--to high school, exams, university, while he stood still,
locked in his own limitations.

It was like moving away on the train of time and progress while
watching him stand still on the platform.

When, later, we came home for college vacations, etc., we were always
greeted by the same warm smile, but it became harder and harder to
explain that we couldn't "come out to play just at this moment" or that
we weren't going to the store for sweets, but rather, going off to
matriculate for the coming, university session.

John did age physically, however, and he grappled confusedly with
puberty, beards, deepening voice and, out of natural curiosity,
pulling-erect-penis-out-of-pants for inspection, regardless of company
present....

John's predictable solution to his railway-platform dilemma was to
latch on or attach himself to a new breed, a next generation, of
up-and-coming, street children (kids, a few years younger than us). He
would stride in phase with these kids, matching them step-for-step
until, again, the inevitable happened: they caught the "train of
time."

Every single offspring in that street passed through John on his or her
way to adulthood, in the same fashion, that sons and daughters of
aristocratic families pass through and are comforted and helped by the
old-revered, family Nanny, before finally leaving her behind.

I was fond of that gentle, happy fellow and on my last visit home, I
got prickles on my neck, watching a moustached, 39-year old, making an
uncoordinated stab at swinging a bat and kicking a ball. As always, his
young, new pals let him play on the team.

I shudder a bit at his future. Mongols die young, the books say. Or
will John get old and, eventually, too decrepit for football? Or will
up-tight parents, fearing "sex molestations," ever forbid their
children from sharing their pleasures with a man-child?