When I was a Child

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"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

                                                                                                1 Corinthians 13:11

When I was a child I rode a bus to and from school.  It was not a yellow bus; I think anyone with the fare or a punch ticket was welcome to ride. But I never saw anyone other than a kid from my school on it. *

Kids were typically combed, brushed, and well behaved on the way to school.  But the rides home were often rowdy.  One feature was that the “bad” boys migrated to the back of the bus, wrestled with and punched each other, and told shocking, horrific, and heroic stories.

One day the stories dealt with fathers’ wartime exploits.  A story was told of one father killing a whole bunch of Japanese soldiers in a jungle.  Another boy told of his father parachuting into the middle of the German army and mowing them all down with a machine gun.  Another boy shared a lesson his father taught him: always kill a man QUIETLY AND QUICKLY with a knife rather than nosily with a gun.**

That night I told my family some of those stories, during dinner at the kitchen table.  My dad cautioned me that, while he did not know actual facts, some of the stories sounded implausible.  He suggested that maybe I should question some of the things heard “in the back of the bus.”

Now that I am a man, when I hear a childish presidential candidate boasting - on a bus - of a superlibido, sexual aggression and conquests, I do not believe him for a moment.  If he were to say it in court, under penalty of perjury, then I might pay attention;  but – good grief – he was talking to a TV news bimbo! 

Prominent on the list of reasons not to vote for Mr Trump is that he is infantile.  But let’s not take his sexual fantasies seriously.

UPDATE:  According to a New York Times story just put on line, I may be dead wrong.  Two credible women have come forward with believable damning stories.  There is no joy here.

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* Circa 1953

* * Killing with knife is often quieter than with a gun shot, but quick quiet killing requires skill and strength.  Google "Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Smith" if you have the stomach for that sort of thing.  As to how effective silencers are in suppressing gun shot noise, a quick google search suggests that they are not very effective.