Stick It to the Man

When I work outside, under the deck, my son and younger daughter like to bring me sticks from the brush pile to cut into foot-long segments. I have no idea what they use them for. Mostly they lay around the yard. But they're three and six, and I hate to tell them no just for being kids, so what they bring me I cut up, then collect from the grass before I mow.

One day they present to me a nice, thumb-sized maple branch, straight, with smooth-bark, the kind my oldest daughter, the eight-year-old authority of yard, hates for them to play with. Inevitably she's laid special claim to such sticks and forbidden anyone from touching it. When she finds this one chopped down to segments, she'll freak. Well, I think, a learning opportunity. We can have another conversation on appropriate responses to anger and how her brother and sister are more important than a good stick. So I cut up the maple branch.

As I start sawing the middle of the last two-foot segment, my son says, "I want the burnt end." Puzzled, I twirl the stick. Sure enough, the pointy end is charred and black. This isn't from the brush pile, it's my backyard fire poker—sturdy, a little green, the right length for pushing burning logs around. And now it's two feet long. I open my mouth to lay into the kids for bringing it to me to cut up—

Then I clap it shut. So that's where my oldest gets it.

I finish the last cut and give my son the burnt end. A learning opportunity indeed.