Setting Sail

The Journey of this channel begins with a ride in an old Cadillac during a hot mid-August day between a father and his four year old son traveling down a thoroughfare in Boise, ID. The son had seen his father put fuel into the car many times before, however what made this trip spectacular was the fact that they were reading Treasure Island at the time. The premise of the book, of course, is treasure. A horde of wealth envied by magistrates and kings. As the son sat pondering what sons ponder (the quest, heroes, villains, monsters, moral dilemmas and the Damsel) he saw his father hand the station attendant several pieces of paper that he knew was money. The son only had a rudimentary knowledge of what money was: a store of value. He had seen gold and silver from his father’s own collection and had a concept of why pirates would want such precious things. He knew it could be traded and bartered with witnessing exchanges take place at flea markets and dealings he had gone with his father on.

The father did not give the attendant a piece of gold or several rounds of silver, but simple paper. Now the paper did have the images of some of the greatest men that ever belonged to this fine country, but that could not have inspired the paper’s value.
After all, the silver dollars the father collected had the images of great men of this country on them as well, but what gave them value was the silver content of the coin. AHHA! Paper is lighter than coins. The pirates had complained about the weight of the treasure in the book! The paper must be simply a REPERSENTATION of the money (a currency if you will) with the representation obviously being of gold and silver! The father had just exchanged a representation of gold and/or silver for fuel to power an engine to move the massive car down the road at high speeds.

As the father finished pumping the fuel and sat down in the front seat, the son had developed an itch in the back of his mind to ask the father about representative money (currency) and actual money (gold/silver). As the father pressed on the brake and turned the ignition the itch became a painful splinter. When they had pulled onto the road the splinter had become a migraine.

By the time they had reached the first light the son felt he was about to explode! He knew the question, he just didn’t know how to articulate it. The son had become so frustrated about being youthfully ignorant, so infuriated with himself that he lacked the vocabulary to ask a question that he so desperately needed the answer, he became physically ill. The father took note and asked “Hey, are you ok? I know it’s hot, how about some ice cream to help cool us down?” Hearing the words ‘ice cream’ abated the pain of the question that wracked the mind of the four year old, and he agreed with simple eagerness.

This will be the single greatest regret in the son’s life. He will be fatherless in a few short years. He will be forced to take on the role of a leader for the family. He will have few teachers, fewer mentors, and, although building a charm, wit, and humor, still fewer friends. Books would become the guide posts in his travels, schools would be proving grounds of his philosophy, and the nature of the vast wildlands of the country his education. He will do battle with forces of darkness from within himself and from his surroundings. He will face great foes and challenges while providing many small, yet noble deeds to his fellow man. In the coming years he will learn treachery and deceit, he will be damned by betrayal, and he will come to know death. Even with all these trials that are yet to come, the simplicity of not asking a question would still remain the greatest regret in his life.

I am the son. This channel is the means to rectify that regret.