Chapter 4 - Richard and Eli Got Along Until Eli Turned Eleven
Little children admire adults who know:
everything.
Eleven-year-olds discover:
adults can be wrong.
Richard did not enjoy that transition.
Eli started correcting:
him.
Not maliciously.
Grandpa says the moon landing happened in 1970.
Eli:
“1969.”
Grandpa says computers make kids lazy.
Eli:
“My homework is on a computer.”
Grandpa says:
“Enough.”
Then sports.
Richard believed every boy should play:
football.
Eli hated football.
He liked:
cross-country,
drawing,
model airplanes,
history podcasts.
Richard called:
running “exercise for people afraid of contact.”
Eli said:
“That’s stupid.”
That became a major argument.
Richard later told me:
“He’s disrespectful.”
I told Eli:
“Don’t call Grandpa stupid.”
Reasonable.
What I did not ask:
What does Grandpa call you?
May you like
That imbalance mattered.
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