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KEEPERS AND TRADERS
Monday Jan. 9, 2012
First day back, after the holidays, for kids. Lots of them walking to bus stops this morning.
Absence of snow reminds me of spring days playing marbles before and after school. Do you remember back then, when the kid on the schoolyard with the biggest bulging bag of marbles was the most envied kid?
All that wealth, and power, from a simple marble bag!
But it wasn’t was it? The truly cool kids had a purple velvet one, trimmed in gold braid, proving only that their parents had bottle of Crown Royal at some point – because the prize, for kids, was the bag from which playground commerce grew.
Large crystal marbles would easily fetch a dozen small cats-eyes.
But who would part with a prized shooter?
Toys, games, sports gear, hockey and baseball cards – currency of playground commerce – do you remember, when we were kids, when our early trades taught us to negotiate?
We wanted more and more. Not all the marbles, but just enough so our faded velvet Crown Royal bag, if we had one, would bulge more than someone else’s.
Prized possessions were not so easy to part with, no matter how sweet the deal.
To be all in, all your eggs in one basket, having all your marbles in one bag – does not allow for much diversity, doesn’t consider risk/loss, doesn’t leave our minds open or arms spread wide to welcome someone new . . .
In the grown up world we have homes, animals, old cars, favourite jackets . . . and old friends.
How many old friends would you trade for new friends? Would 1 old one for 3 new ones be a good trade?
What would you swap? What would you never trade?
An old client of mine (back in the 80s), in his 80s at the time, advocated cultivating lots of new friends, especially ones much younger, because in time you have less and less of them.
We live in a world, still, where too many people are focused more on swelling their marble bag of loot without regard for collecting more and younger friends.
Mark Kolke
306,740
column written/ published from Calgary: morning walk: 3 C/ 37F, light overcast and calm. Each time I walk Gusta on a new route she gets so distracted by new smells in need of investigation she often fails, as she did this morning, to do her business. I’m not sure if she forgets or just can’t relax because fresh sights and smells over-stimulate her.
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