Sword

Among the five or so kids at the bus stop each morning is a six-grader.  Oddly enough, maybe, he's very friendly and is always eager to talk.  (AO has said that this is the age she'd like to teach and perhaps I understand now.)  He shows up yesterday with the hilt of a sword sticking up out of his back pack.  BB has a small sword for his pirate costume (better than a gun, we reasoned), so I pointed to this older kid's big sword.  I'm thinking, do they let them take these things to school, ferchrissake?  But to BB this is straight out of his history books.  So, we have a barely awake, awkward discussion about the heft of swords, the merits of one-handed or two-handed swords, and (from my son) a discourse on a battle won by the "people" defending themselves against the English. (He claimed it was the "Wales," but I'm sure he meant the Scots.) In any case, all of this gets filtered through my own childhood imprints.  We haven't done Star Wars yet, I think, but soon, soon.  And then on to Firefly (cowboys and swords!), sometime, maybe, in the future.