A Bright Idea, Literally

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My son is very literal. It comes with his autism.

A few weeks ago when we were on the coast, he brought a bunch of stones into the house. They are stones from the path that runs round the side of the house. He played with them and then left them on the floor. I said, “Hey, throw these stones outside.”

He collected them, walked to the backdoor, opened it and threw them outside and onto the patio.

That was outside, very literally.

Next time, I told myself, be more specific about throwing the stones on the path round the side of the house.

No matter, that’s what my five-year-old son is like. Exact and literal. He’s my own Amelia Bedelia, if you’ve ever heard of the protagonist from the series of children’s books. Amelia was once left instructions to draw the curtains. So she got a piece of paper and a pen and, well, drew the curtains.

It can be helpful to be so literal.

My son came up to my wife with his skateboard when we were in the city apartment and told her he wanted to go to Pinamar, to our house on the coast. My wife looked at him and asked if he wanted to take his skateboard to Pinamar.

He looked at her as if she’d grown two heads.

“Nooooo…” he said. “We go driving to Pinamar, not on my skateboard.”

It makes sense.

He does miss the house on the coast. The forest, the garden and the open spaces for running around. It beats a crowded apartment in a busy city.

“Hey,” he said. “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we bring the house here and take the apartment to Pinamar.”

It’s a thought – and for him a real possibility, literally.

Scoop

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As a reporter, I am always on the lookout for stories.

So I perked up when my eldest daughter started telling me about the stories she was hearing from her classmates.

“In Mar del Plata,” the seven-year-old told me, “there are ghosts.”

“Go on,” I said.

“My friends have heard them when they’re in bed. At night. Noises. It happens in hotels, the ghosts come out…”

She pauses.

Then says, “When can we go? Because I want to take my camera, and I’m going to video the ghosts. We’ll have to stay in a hotel, and I will go around looking for them, and if I don’t find them I will wait for them in bed until they come out. And I will be ready with my camera.”

“Won’t you be scared?” I ask.

“Very!”

“What will you do?”

“I will be brave and I will keep on videoing them… then I’ll shout for you… but they’ll probably be gone when you get there.”

“Oh.”

“But I’ll show you the video, if you want.”

AR-GEN-TINA

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The World Cup is around the corner and we are still debating who to support. If you live in Argentina, it’s not easy to support any side but Argentina.
I know.
This will be my fifth World Cup in Argentina. In the first, I rushed out with cousins to cheer Argentina after it beat Nigeria. We gathered with hundreds around the Obelisk, a main monument on a main avenue in Buenos Aires. I was infected, an instant fan. We jumped up and down and shouted “AR-GEN-TINA!”
The thrill. It caught me. It converted me. I was now a big and keen supporter, rooting on favorite local sides and players, getting to know the grounds and the teams. Reading up on the latest in football, catching games and cheering, rooting and loving it. I’d become a football fan, with Argentina now my favorite, something not too difficult for a man from America, where football hasn’t made it beyond the AYSO masses to generate much fervor.
I was in Argentina, and Argentina was in me.
“AR-GEN-TINA!”
Then I met my wife.
She’s beautiful, she’s inspiring and she’s English.
So I became a die-hard England supporter, and in the next World Cup I cheered on England. And they had to play Argentina. Shit. How can you root on your new side in a country that could very well turn on you and leave you in crutches for wrongful support? Go Argentina! Go England! I silently cheered on my wife’s side and the magical goal by Michael Owen only to watch my wife’s team lose to my former heroes. My wife called downtrodden – and almost trodden. She had walked home across half the city as the streets flooded with Argentines cheering the win and singing, “He who doesn’t jump is an Englishman.” My wife refused to jump despite the risk of detection. She hurried home, almost in tears as the streets came alive with the chants of “AR-GEN-TINA!”
The next World Cup brought another showdown – and a payback for my wife. England beat Argentina, and the streets of Buenos Aires fell silent. Nobody jumped. Except, of course, my wife. Silently. We chuckled a bit the next morning when listening to the radio as a DJ unwittingly – or with a death wish – spun a tribute to England. He played Queen’s “We Are the Champions.” I don’t think anybody noticed except us.
This year? With three Argentine kids, us parents are outnumbered. Argentina three, England one, America one. I can switch back and forth, in a way, because my father’s Argentine and my mother’s English.
My children can too.
So which will they choose?
A few weeks ago, my seven-year-old daughter came home convinced on supporting England. The reason? It’d keep Roberto from trying to kiss her. My five-year-old son is going for our former hometown – Pinamar, where we lived for two glorious years. The place he still calls home despite our new life in the big city.
No matter, the outside pressure is building as kids and grownups talk about the coming games, the thrill and the excitement and the hot chances of Argentina. They’ll do it this time, if you like Diego Maradona or not. They’ve got Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez. Unbeatable. The kids are taking it all in and they talking about it and waiting for the opening game because inside they know who they are going to support no matter what, even the two-year-old has learned what to chant in this land where her parents are immigrants.
“AR-GEN-TINA!”