Did you get your tickets to the Gun Show? (flex)

Because I don't feel like writing about the mile-square cemetery where I practiced driving in loops around stone angels and funeral procession gridlock made from blingin' cadillacs polished to somber shades of eggplant, saffron, and tamarind, several of which had matching "Compton's Finest" logos spelled in gold on their rear windows, and imagined that whomever they were grieving was probably too young to die;

and Because all that happened today of note was that Edie and I rode the Metro bus which is a wholly different system from Portland's Tri-Met which threw me into the role I've been trying to avoid, which is the new-to-towner who doesn't know how much to pay or where to pay it or what the transfer's good for or where to catch the number 3, forcing me to Talk To Strangers, which is one of the baby's and my favorite things to do but which has recently become a bone of contention among the Representatives of the House but even more recently has been resolved with a promise to be cautious and an assurance that you can take the girl out of Friendly Neighborhoods but you can't take the Friendly Neighborhoods out of the girl, so why fight it?
Um...where was I? Oh yes, because of all that, and additionally because today one of the riders on the bus, watching Edie play with A Stranger, said, "You know why babies love Peek-a-Boo so much? Because that's the nature of everything. It's here and then it's gone!" and then after watching more Strangers watch her stare back at them and bounce and flip upside down and make a monstrous face followed by an adorable smile followed by bellowing at the top of baby lungs, this Particular Stranger got up to leave and said "Thank you, I believe she just made everybody here's day a little better," and without an ounce of Motherpride I can say that it is true. She does make people's days better, everywhere she goes! Super Baby. Another Stranger said it almost made him want to have kids and then I laughed a Terrible Laugh and congratulated Edie, "Our work here is done, Muahahahaha!"

Anyways, because I don't feel like writing about any of that, I present you with a random story which has for no apparent reason been nagging at me lately. I've been thinking about Trevor the Tiny Farm Boy.

We had just gotten all the children settled down for Circle Time, after bringing them in from the playground, removing stuck sleeves from twisted arms, replacing accidented pants with fresh pairs, taking the potty goers to the potty, and changing the diaper wearers' diapers.
"Here we are together
together, together.
Here....we are together
together a- "
"Trevor!" My co-teacher pointed at the window, where the smallest boy in the class was drifting past in his coat, in the gathering darkness, with his tree branch rifle shouldered and ready.
"Oh my God, we left Trevor outside!" It had been nearly a half hour.
I kept the circle going as Stacy ran outside to get Trevor.
When Trevor came to circle, bringing the chill of an autumn afternoon with him, I asked him what he'd been doing out there, knowing the answer before he proudly replied.

"Nootin' Caiyotes."

Trevor was the only child of a Farmer and a Farmer's Wife. They were archetypal in their Farmerliness. Trevor's dad was about 12 feet tall, wore muddy boots and red flannel shirts with suspenders, and had a hearty, booming voice which sometimes caught in his thick brown mustache. He was the embodiment of rugged country masculinity, and it was obvious that he was Trevor's hero in every way, though Trevor resembled his mother much more closely. She was short and stout, with a high melodic voice and a quick, easy laugh. She always wore solid colored dresses with brown boots, and looked like she'd be right at home canning fruit and baking pies, most days. Trevor loved to follow his dad around the farm, checking on the animals, fixing the heavy equipment, stomping in the mud with bravado. He and his dad even took their guns to the edge of the property to see if they could spot any threats to the livestock. Coyotes. Trevor's favorite thing to do was shoot at the Coyotes, and this carried over into his imaginative play at school. It was getting to be quite the issue with the other kids, though, because in the absence of real coyotes on the fenced-in field of gravel that we considered a playground, there was only one reliable moving target. The other kids. I don't remember how many times the other children came crying, "Teacher, Trevor keeps shooting me with his gun."

The preschool had an anti-weapon policy, of course. As teachers we were supposed to uphold a zero-tolerance policy regarding guns and other violent weapons, and we tried. We encouraged Trevor to build towers with blocks but they usually became guns which shot down other towers. We gave him playdough which became guns. Everything became a gun in the hands of this kid, unless it was a coyote. Nootin' Caiyotes was the only game Trevor wanted to play. He was bringing to school a big part of his life as a farmer. I understood that this family had a livelihood to protect, and that meant "Nootin' Caiyotes" every evening at dusk. (My sister and brother-in-law have taken a more gentle stance on the predatory deer that plague their fruit-trees, by hanging bars of Irish Springs from each tree, presumably because the deer prefer to stay dirty.) It was confusing to Trevor, who at the age of 3 had already learned to shoot a gun, to be in school and have everybody tell him that guns were bad and wrong. I felt for him, but I also felt for the other children, and most of all, the coyotes. It bothered me when he puffed out his little chest and boasted that he and his dad had shot 3 coyotes the day before. I didn't want to condemn his actions, since they were, to him and his family, a necessary part of life, but I did want him to consider another perspective.

So I made a trip to the Library (Public Libraries always save the day). I picked out a few books about wild animals, specifically coyotes, and brought them to the classroom. After lunch, as we were getting ready for Naptime, the kids were allowed to lay on their cots and read a book to help them settle down. Usually we let them pick out their own books but sometimes we'd pick for them. That's how Trevor found a picture book about coyotes on his cot.

A little boy wakes up in the moonlight. There are coyotes howling in the distance. The boy climbs out of bed, out his window, and runs to meet the coyotes on the hill. They greet the boy playfully, and spend the night running through the woods, having mystical coyote adventures. At the end of the night, the boy hugs the coyotes and returns to his bed, just as the sun is coming up.

When I made the back-patting/nose-rubbing/blanket-tucking rounds, I found Trevor lost in thought, staring at the cover of his book. He read it again. He was a child of few words, so I don't know what he thought of the story. I do know that he thought of it, which was all I'd hoped for. To plant a teeny tiny seed of something else inside that caiyote nootin' noggin of his.

the end.