-- Saturday, February 19, 2000 --

2:56 a.m. Tonight's entry is part of a continuing saga of connected entries from different journals. My comments are a riff on Catherine's, and from her site you can follow this thread all the way back to its beginning as one story evolves into another, and another ... and does something get lost in the translation ... or is something gained?

The children of our thoughts will be the judge.

Meanwhile, the two well-dressed, but squirmy children in this photo are my own young 'uns, all dressed up for Thanksgiving dinner, circa 1974. My little girl is seven and my little boy is four. Those were the days. My words were the Commandments; my wishes were their commands. My love of plaid -- the law of the land.

I designed their world, and one of the things I wanted them to have was a love of music. Thus, the handy music-selection machine you see in the photo. A little boy's four-year-old fingers could press down the appropriate letter-number combinations, even though he was not yet tall enough to watch the record come swinging down.

My daughter had been reading for a very long time when this photo was taken, and I'd written out all the little music slips under the glass just for her. There were three different colors of tags -- for the three major eras of music at that point in time: the '50s, the '60s, and the '70s. The tunes were further divided between those you could dance to (I drew a little foot on the tag) and those you could sing to (I don't remember the drawing for this one). For some reason, I still remember that "Splish Splash" ('60s/sing/dance) was located at A-7.

Our little children look to us for clues about how to order the chaotic world we bring them into. I wonder if it was easier for me and my kids back then. To begin with, there was no '80s or '90s or '00s music to label. Forty-fives were just records, rather than weapons. Ayds was a weird diet candy. Crack was the sound the baseball makes when it leaves the bat.

Times change. Tunes change. Even change changes. That jukebox in the photo used nickels as currency, and the thing itself is worth a lot more money than we paid for it. And my words probably don't strike my children's ears with the same profound voice-from-the-mountaintop clarity they once did.

Now, I find myself turning to my own children for advice and general wisdom. If I have a problem with my computer or a question about the web, I call my daughter at work. I've just taken a series of photos of the bound roots of my poor potted plant so that my son can help me figure out how to save it.

If I have a question about music, I ask my daughter. A question about musical equipment, I ask her husband, who is a musician. A question about pretty much anything mechanical in the world, I call my son. Something financial -- any one of them has the answers.

They know so much about so many things, I have to wonder where they learned it all. I don't remember teaching much more than the colors, the letters, and the primary numbers. That, and the concept of iconic feet and the eras, as defined by their dance music.

Maybe it was enough.*