TBT: An Ode to Joy

Rube Goldberg.

If you're not quite certain who that is, that's fine, I didn't know until my senior year of high-school when I was assigned the dreaded Rube Goldberg Project in a Physics class.

Although, back then, I had to make my way across campus and spend like whole minutes flipping through a card catalogue until I found the guy, and then had to actually cross to the other side of the room to find a book that had examples of his illustrations.

And no, that wasn't cause my mommy took my smart phone away for missing curfew.

There was a time when Mister Dewey Decimal was the fastest search engine on the planet.

Even faster than AOL or Netscape.

If you're not quite certain what those are, you seriously need to consider getting off my lawn.

Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist and inventor who was famous for these drawings of very complicated machinery to do simple tasks. I would describe in detail, but he's not really the point, so go ahead and Google him after you're finished reading it.

The reason he comes up is because there was this real life example of a Rube Goldberg-esque water fountain at the pumpkin patch (circa 2007). My son, being mesmerized by the noise and movement, would burst with giggles when the flow of water reached this particular apex and hit a frying pan with an extremely satisfying clang.

I could have watched him, watch it, for hours.

gurgle, gurgle, spurt, clang {Giggle}

freaking hours.

It took me a good ten minutes of just pure Daddy satisfaction before I realized I should totally get a picture of his face the second the water hits the pan.

I got a lot of great shots during that amazing moment, but his is the one where his face lights up like red phosphorous on a match stick.

There is nothing but joy in that gummy little smile.

Now, just so we're clear, you couldn't pay me enough to travel back in time to that moment, knowing all the muck that I would have to trudge through in order to get to where I am now. I did not live an unobserved life, so my memories are just as good, if not better than the real thing.

It's ridiculous to ache for a past when there is clearly so much future ahead.

But that doesn't mean we should be afraid to close our eyes and play out this moment again and again and again.

Cause, well, these moments you will never be able to Google.

gurgle, gurgle, spurt, clang {Giggle}