He is 7 years old, with the biggest brown eyes you have ever seen. He is his daddy's image and his mother's baby. His hair is a sun bleached borderline blonde that is fresh from a cut with his mother's razor comb. His nails as ever are black. Exploration is his nom de plum. He has snuck his way underneath every home within four blocks and searched the crawl spaces for rolly pollys, snakes, bones, and other treasures. There does not exist a street drain within a mile that he has not entered and mapped back into his secret spy network deep in the woods. He has it all figured out. When they come, he is ready. They can't follow him through the drains. They are too big. He will use the drains to lure them into the woods. Once they are there, he has them. They will chase him into the swamp. Only he knows the safe path through the suck mud. They will be trapped. He had to abandon his idea for a crawdad and frog army. It was a slightly flawed pairing. The crawdads kept eating the tadpoles. He, however, still has his arsenal of rocks, English walnuts, and old hickory clubs carefully stashed nearby. They will be done for.
It is funny. He had no concept of who "they" were, or why they would be invading, but he had his battle plans all mapped out. The suck mud plan was solid. He nearly died a dozen times finding that "safe" path. The things young minds can come up with. The places they can go. As a child, I was pretty much relegated to small corner of the world. My woods, my creek, and my river made up my entire world. It was, however, bigger than the sky itself. Bottle diamonds and clay banks were my treasure trove. English walnuts and old hickories my arsenal. Giant oaks and maples my ladder to the heavens, and gravity my constant foe. I never killed a bird, a rabbit, a squirrel, a possum, or a coon, but they all felt those pudgy little hands with the dirty nails, and knew they were beat. For the record, the all bite, pinch, and claw in some form or fashion. I was a small child, it was a very small place, but I lived so very big within earshot of mom.
Looking back, she was the one who set me loose on the world. I was her baby, and she was raising a good boy. So, it was never a looming shadow pointing out a path. She simply said, "you better stay where you can hear me." Sound carries a long way in a quiet southern town, and a little boy has fast bare feet. Thank you mom for letting him run and dream. Even today, you never point a path. You simply say, "momma loves you baby," and let me run. I have never done anything to deserve you, and likely I never will. If it wasn't always clear, I loved you then, and I always will. | 
