"I know a girl from a lonely street, cold as ice cream but still as sweet. Dry your eyes Sunday girl." Blondie

"Let the disappointments pass Let the laughter fill your glass Let your illusions last until they shatter." Jackson Browne

Harrison will not take me to the Sweetheart Breakfast at his school. I pretend it does not hurt that he has grown too big for such things, but it does. Only recently he stopped reaching out for my hand in parking lots.

I miss my little boy.

My son is cynical, and he does not like a lot of things. I wonder when he went from sweet to cynical. I think it was about the time that Gelato, the bunny in this photo, died. Harrison had adopted Gelato when the bunny was only a week old. He wanted to bring Gelato home from the farm where he went each Saturday morning. We did not let him. The bunny froze to death. Harrison refused to go back to the farm program after that. It was a death that could have been prevented and he is still angry with the farmer.

Harrison does not like the farm, and I understand that, but it is shocking to me some of the other things Harrison does not like. He recently confided in me that he does not like The Beatles. I was heartbroken. His revelation confirmed for me something I have long suspected. Harrison does not like anything that is pure and good.

He does not like any of the music I like, especially the song Our House. Even as an infant, when that song came on he would cover his ears and cry. Sometimes on long car trips, Eden sits in the back seat and quietly hums it just to drive him crazy.

Harrison does not like chocolate, or Popeye the Sailor Man, or swimming in fresh water.

He does not like very small children, especially one particular friend of our family who is perhaps the most pure bundle of goodness we know. "She is so annoying!" he exclaims. "She always wants to be in the same room as me and she just always keeps asking me, 'Why?', and so I tell her, 'I don't know why,' and then she says,'Why?' and I say, 'I don't know why,' and she says,'Why?" It drives me insane! I don't like her at all!"

Well, I can understand perhaps finding a toddler tedious, but he truly does not like any small children. He is not wild about children his own age either. I hesitate to even put this in print, but he does not like babies.

Now, some people reading this, Mrs. G. for example, are likely to be on the same page with him when it comes to babies and small children, but I know that babies and small children are pure and good.

"You know what else I don't like that's pure and good?" he asks me.
"What Buddy, What else do you not like?" I ask, although I am afraid to hear the answer.
"Crayons. I hate crayons! And I don't like Crayola Markers either. I hate Crayola markers with their big caps. They suck. Sharpies. I like Sharpies."

This is when his father chimed in," I don't like crayons either! They are useless! And I am not particularly fond of puppies."

Eden nearly fell under the table, tears in her eyes, mouth open in disbelief. "Crayons?" she asks,"How can anyone not like crayons? And puppies? What kind of people are you?
Stop the insanity, PLEASE, No More!"

But this just added fuel to the fire, as Dennis started reeling of some of the many things he does not like - things that other people might think are pure and good. So now we know exactly where Harrison gets it.

They both hate Oprah, not that she is especially pure or good, but they think a lot of women think Oprah is pure and good, so she made the list. They called her the Devil's sister, and they take great pleasure in not liking her.

"Any you know what else I don't like?" Harrison asks, because now he is on a roll.
"It's not pure and good, but I just don't like it. In fact I hate it. I hate it when you are on a road trip and you make a road stop to get a snack and a soda and you go in the restroom and there is a trucker in there and he uses the bathroom and he really has to poop because he has been holding it in for, like, a day and he takes forever and he makes that noise and stuff. I hate that, even though it's not pure and good. I just hate it."

"What do you like that is pure and good?" I ask my menfolk.
They both agreed on one thing.
Pancakes.
Homemade buttermilk pancakes.
But not just any pancakes. Harrison only like my pancakes, and Dennis only likes organic whole grain gluten-free hippie pancakes made with fresh buttermilk and fair trade shade-grown pecans. He especially likes them when he can imagine that the grain was ground into meal by braless young blonds in braids, barefoot and dressed in calico, but I digress...

I am glad to learn that Harrison does love the smell of garlic oil on his hands when he is making breadsticks. He also likes homemade vanilla ice cream, and he loves animals. Yet I think about the content pleasure I feel when I open a new box of crayons and inhale their unique smell, and it makes me sad for him. I keep thinking about The Beatles. My son, lovingly named after George Harrison, can't stand The Beatles. It makes me sad, and reminds me of a song by Jackson Browne. I would play it, but my son would stomp away upstairs and cover his ears.