Wow. Really...

Dear You,

"Wow!" said my grandson, after raising himself from the electronic game console to look out the car window at the river. Gabriel and I were on a 210 mile journey to return him to his mother after his three-day visit with us this weekend. I-86 is a beautiful roadway in any season, and now in deep Summer it features mountainsides and streambeds and little villages glimpsed now and then. As I drove, I was conscious of the bleeps and clicks and annoying scraps of "music" that accompanied his GameBoy version of Spongebob Squarepants. He is an addict.

Trying to lure him toward the beauties of the natural world, I interrupted his play now and then by suggesting he observe what to my eye was especially beautiful outside the car, and he dutifully obeyed, returning quickly to the toy. On this occasion, I was struck by the false sincerity in his voice. "Wow!" But not really. "You're so square," he might have said had he been a child in my time of growing up. He is seven.

Someone said of being an actor that you know you're good if you can fake sincerity. How easily and early some children learn this! With this final attempt to wean him away from the artificial to the real, I left him to his imaginary world and watched the scenery pass by. "Wow!" I thought . . . quite sincerely.