The Childhood's End Edition TRIO Special Event: Guest Writer WALTER M. BRASCH, Ph.D., Bloomsburg University, Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, USA, on Kids and Guns HOUSE OF CARDS: A NEW Joke of the Day from BOB POWERS, Marietta, OH, USA. CRUNCHTIME: WALLY WORTS on female NBA Coaches, Mark McGwire's prospects of setting a new standard, and the Wort Philosophy. TRIO: RADIO RAHEEM says that Childhood Ends when you learn to "SAY THE WORDS." HOUSE OF CARDS: A NEW Joke of the Day from JIM FARRINGTON, Middletown, CT, USA. PLANETARY MADNESS: JENNIFER BLUE does the take on whether "... the fault, Dear Brutus..." is in your stars or you.... LONDON CALLING!: FLISS USSHER proclaims that Childhood's End is learning to THINK. ON DRUGS: ADAM J. SMITH on a rational way to deal with the "Substances, Substances" which are part of our lives. Another update of Your VOX POPULI page: CARLENE(The Misanthropic Bitch) returns to answer a critic, WALLY WORTS has a fan, and more of the "Nial C. & Tom Show..." STONEWALL VIEWS: PHIL MARTIN on the childishness of "SALAD BAR RELIGION." DON'T READ ME FIRST!: Our publisher admits surprise at where this theme is going! The MACHINE Edition BarnesandNoble SEARCH: If you're like us, you like good writing. Use the Barnes and Noble Search Engine page to find great savings on good books, delivered right to your home or office! For rapid response, use The Message Board HOME

CHILDHOOD'S END INSIDER

SAN FRANCISCO - 24 May, 1998 - I am genuinely surprised this week. The lead articles of this edition define "Childhood's End," our theme, as that moment when one learns to think for themselves. As you might intuit from our cover, that was not how I envision it, at all. Rather, I see Childhood's End as a form of death....

My own personal subtitle would be, "The Loss of Innocence," which --- while intersecting with what our writers posit here --- is not exactly the same thing.

Because my own childhood was so unhappy, and thus isolated, I guess I had always felt that I thought for myself. Circumstances forced me to be my own best friend from the very beginning. My parents had taught me that NO ONE could be trusted unconditionally, and I took that lesson to heart. I shielded myself from a hostile world. This state of vigilance and distrust obtained until I fell in love for the first time.

I was drawn out by another injured child, this time someone who had suffered under the burden of scoliosis since birth. She was confined to a series of metal and rubber braces until her late teens, and so had suffered her own forms of isolation, sadness and opprobrium. Yet, it was she who drew me out of my isolation and distrust, open as she still was to the possibility of magic and wonder in the world. I had a new best friend; it was a wonderful gift for which I shall be eternally grateful. This gift opened up all sorts of new possibility, and dreams not tied to ambition("I'll show them!"), which I had thought forbidden to me.... Suddenly I lived in a technicolor world, like the character in that wonderful Canadian cartoon, "Life in a Tin." The child who believed that anything was possible was re-awakened in my life by this love.

Lynda Day, who is now lost to me, will haunt me the rest of my life. Steve said she was the best woman he had ever known. I agree...

The New Rod("Rodya," she called me) remained there, hopeful and cock-sure, until I killed him, once and for all.

This has always been my notion of Childhood's End, irremedial and unredeemable REGRET. I did not feel genuine regret, and its concomitant guilt, until I was past thirty years old. That was when, for the first time in my life, I learned that I could not even trust me... My guilt and regret were so strong that I have never recovered from them fully. The Rod I had known and loved had died, to be replaced by the flawed character who could do grievous wrong to himself and others, who had betrayed my most deeply held beliefs and convictions about myself. Like archetypal Adam, I had gained the knowledge of good and evil, and recognized that I was naked; my childhood was over forever...

In retrospect, this chastening was, most likely, a good thing. It allowed me to have a greater amount of compassion for others... Children do not have compassion because they do not fully comprehend consequentiality.... And seeing deeply my own fallibility even allowed me to begin to forgive my parents as much as I am capable of such forgiveness. It opened up the first sense of my mortality(until then I had honestly believed, like a child, that I was immortal.)

Only two years later, when my college friend, Stephen Bland, died of AIDS, and I re-read the near-daily letters we had shared across coasts during the final years of his life, I was forced to examine myself even further. The man he praised and celebrated in his letters, his dear friend, the committed artist and supporter of the dreams of others, rang untrue. My guilt was compounded, and I embarked upon years of extreme penance.

I often look back at the arrogant, self-confident person who lived inside my skin before these blows with wistful envy. I would not trade places with him, because he was childish. But I most certainly wish some of his indefatiqueable belief in infinite possibility, and magic, had been left alive in me....

May the belief in magic always thrive in your lives.

We're glad you're here. As you can see from the nav' bar to our upper left, we have a lot to offer this(and EVERY) week. Stick around. More importantly: TELL EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS. We want you here EVERY DAY.

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WHY?

Because we like you....

Be Good to Each Other,
Rod

ROD AMIS is also a Contributing Editor at Suite101.com, where he writes the " 'Net Publishing" feature when not busy with publishing chores at this site, and answering sixty -to- one hundred e-mails a day.

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