A Tale My Father Told

“Andy,” my father would often say, “when I was a boy, there was no television, but when I was eight years old, my uncle Renz bought me something called a ‘crystal set’. It was a set of tubes, called crystals, set into a wooden box, and wired together. The miracle of it was, words came out of it, and music came out of it, you just couldn’t believe the sheer thrill it was to hear voices and music coming out of a wooden box.”

“Just a few years before that, my father, mom and all the kids would sit around the living room, and listen to stories my grandfather told. The fireplace would be sparkling, and warm, and the words would flow like Beethoven’s Fifth Concerto. And you know what that sounds like, don’t you, Andy? It’s hard to even think that a mere human being could create such a beautiful ocean of music, like that man did. But he surely did.”

The thing of it is, kid, I honestly think that the dream of Beethoven’s Fifth so far surpasses the miracle of the radio, (because that’s what the modern crystal set is, a radio).”

“Good old Dad, your grandpa, the miracle that he produced was his art. I know you don’t know about this, but he could draw a horse in the field just as realistically as if it was standing right in front of you. So it’s no surprise at all that your son, and my grandson, can draw as well as he does.”

“So, in our very genes, we carry all the dreams and miracles of the future ages. Now, isn’t that something to think about?”

And he would chuck me under the chin, wink, and send me to bed, after a goodnight buss on the forehead.