Lessons...

Joey and I are listening to some of my favorite tunes on YouTube. Joey loves punk rock. To mix it up a little, I play “Straight To Hell,” a menacing yet slower tune than what we had been listening to.

“This isn’t punk,” Joey tells me.

“What are you talking about?” I say. “Of course it is.”

“No, it’s not!”

“What’s punk, then?”

“You know."

Joey immediately flails his entire body like only Joey can, like linked, snapping wires -- like those tiny plastic dolls that when you push the bottoms their limbs collapse and fling back into place, except Joey does over and over again and in a blur, convulsing and contorting… I see a foot here and a butt there and I swear a hand almost touches the ceiling despite the fact he just turned seven and does not yet reach four feet. This entire display lasts but three seconds, whereupon I decide that my son is the King, no-- the POPE of this particular kind of physical madness that falls one step short of epilepsy and a trip to the emergency room.

I’m so enthralled I’ve completely forgotten his point. But he hasn’t.

“THAT’S punk, Dad," he says.

...

Why, yes... Yes it is. Good boy, Joey.