Precocious child on the river

"Have you ever been on a locomotive?"

"Why are flies black?"

"Why do bees sting you?"

"How far have you traveled on that boat?"

"I don't like eggs. Why do you?"

"The Easter Bunny leaves me chocolate eggs. Do you know why?"

On our last of five days on the Glenelg River, Steve and I settled in for the night. We moored at Saunders Landing, took the tinny out to fish, then came back to the onshore picnic area where no one else was, and started the barbecue. We cooked steaks, onion, corn on the cob and a potato each and settled in fo a game of Scrabble on the picnic table. Night fell, and we enjoyed the sleepy sounds of parrots and other birds settling in for the night.

Then, midway through the board game and with steak nearly finished, from the surface of the black river we heard a foghorn yelling..."Hey, yep, that's the place we saw earlier today. Oh. There's boats there. But I'm sure it's the same place. Oh. It looks like two boats are there. Pull in anyway. Oh. I think I see lights. Pull in hard right. I'll watch out."

Steve and I looked at each other, and decided to help this other boat company who were trying to navigate by very small lights. My husband helped the couple navigate their VERY old, small, "houseboat" into the landing, and we invited them to share a yarn or two while sipping bubbly wine.

They have a five-year-old son. Hence the afore-mentioned questions.

He is precocious, much how I think my granddaughter is. Curious, processes information quickly. Campbell (his name) noticed Steve's and my interrupted Scrabble game and asked questions about the letters and tiny numbers in the corner. I explained the game to him, and enjoyed watching him learn. But he was also fascinated with our flashlight and had it turned on and off most of the evening. At one point he flashed it into the trees and commented about how far it went.

I asked him, "How far do you think the light goes?"

He pondered a moment and answered, "As far as I can see."

"Really?" I said. "But light travels so much farther than we can see. What if someone was on the moon over there and saw your light? Do you think that could happen? What if the light from stars shining down to us was really just a lot of people on other planets shining their flashlights at us hoping we would see them?"

He looked at me quizzically and said, "flashlight?"

"I mean torch," I said. (Australians call flashlights torches)

He thought about what I had asked for a minute, then with a smile and chuckle, discounted it. "Nah," he said. "That's just too far away."

Campbell was distracted then with the idea of melted marshmallows over a campfire cooked by Steve to perfection, not burnt. As the evening wore on, the little fella was ushered off to bed on his parent's "houseboat."

But I am still left with the memory of a very precocious child raised by parents older than me, and how wonderful that is.