Now Hear This: If only I could go back to age 6
I decided the other day I want to be 6 again. Six years old. Things were so much simpler when I was 6.
Yep, when I was 6, it didn’t get amy more complicated than reading and writing, and how to fly a handmade kite. Daddy played ball with me when I was 6. My cap was always too big and sat sideways on my head. Mama thought it was cute. I didn’t care, because I was 6.
I couldn’t catch very well, but it didn’t matter. Daddy told me what a fine player I would be someday, and I believed him. I believed everything daddy told me, when I was 6.
When I was 6, my daddy could whip your daddy, and the only man stronger in the whole wide world was Superman.
I didn’t know about racism, hatred, and nuclear war. Mama taught me to always share. Jealousy and greed were things I would learn later all by myself. I wasn’t perfect at 6, but it was truly the age of innocence.
At 6, I learned to sing “Jesus Loves Me,” in Sunday school. I knew every word. I could recite the “Pledge of Allegiance,” holding my hand over my heart. I knew right from wrong and not to tell a lie. I was taught never to hit back and always be nice to girls. “Sir” and “Mam” were as much a part of my limited vocabulary as “Why?”
I trusted everybody ? especially grown-ups. When I skinned my knees skating on the sidewalk or fell off my bike, the only person I wanted was Mama cause she would hold me, and somehow it didn’t hurt so bad.
I learned about love when I was 6. That’s when Whizzer came into my life, and I loved that dog with all my heart. To this day, our conversations are still some of the most memorable I’ve ever had.
When I was 6 having a bad day was Mama refusing to take me to the soda shop for ice cream (there were no McDonalds when I was 6), Daddy being too tired to play catch, or Whizzer not interested in chasing the ball.
Herbie was my best friend, when I was 6. We played everyday and never got mad at each other, and we had great secrets between us.
I can’t recall one single worry when I was 6. I take that back. I did worry if Santa Claus would remember where my house was, especially the times we moved.
I had no bills to pay, and no hard decisions to make. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and it didn’t bother me. I thought everything was possible. It was everybody else who didn’t think so. I had no concept of death and didn’t worry about living forever. Heck, tomorrow was forever.
Then one day I was grown up, and I knew too much. I knew all about hatred, racism, and weapons of destruction. Starving and abused children, lies, unhappy marriages, disease and pain. Cruelty to animals. That you can’t trust everybody, and generally people don’t care.
I want to be 6 again. Everything was new and exciting, and everything was possible. I want everything to be simple so my mind isn’t clogged with the details of life. I wish television was what we watched for fun and all the news was good.
I want to wonder again what I’ll be when I grow up. What the world will be like. What kind of job I will have and who I will marry.
I want to be 6 again!
There’s so much I need to tell Herbie ? and Whizzer!
(Hope Hines is a television sports reporter and Nashville personality.)