Imagination – how exciting

This comes from a story in guideposts.

Mother and her small son are walking out from a restaurant when they encounter a fat, black garden hose across the sidewalk. Someone’s watering the shrubbery under the windows and is pulling the hose slowly across the sidewalk. The boy excitedly shouts, “Look out for the big, black snake!”

Mother jerks him over the hose and says, “That’s not a snake. It’s just a garden hose.” That’s sad, sad.  I remember sitting behind the wheel of my dad’s big, blue Buick when I was about 11 and piloting it on exciting flights to various places; I remember engaging in running gun battles with noble enemies, all while on my stick horse.

Imagination must be something we’re supposed to grow out of as we become adults. I hope that when my five year old grandson tells me something he experienced while playing in his fort, I’ll always take him seriously and ask him to tell me more and what happened next.