The Dharma Force

The Magic Drawer

I was doing some chores the other day, when a beige round ball came into the corner of my eyes.

I turned slightly and found that it was the bobbing head of my 1 and 1/2 years old son.

He walked over, without a glance at me and opened a drawer.

It was filled with all kinds of odd things. Take out menus from restaurants we never visited. A couple of keys that would not open any doors. Leftover bolts from the book shelf I assembled. (Hey, as long as it stands ... I consider the job is done! Do I look like an engineer? Wait, I am an engineer. Do I look like a technician?)

Anyway, he opened the drawer, and rumbled through the stuff expertly. He found a broken ballpoint pen, and he made invisible lines on the menus. He twisted the washer on the bolt, and tirelessly stuffed the paper through a plastic cup, and took them out again.

Obviously, this was not his first investigation of the drawer, because he knew exactly where things were, and he played with the eagerness only a little kid could muster.

After watching him for a few minutes, my mind started to wonder. (If you saw the kid repeat a single motion again and again, your mind would wonder too!)

I remembered when I was a kid. Whenever I went to visit my grandma's house, I would stop at my uncle's room.

He was a Physics teacher at a local high school, and he was the smartest person I knew. He could fix stuff. From radios to TVs.

I could hole up in his little room, watch him working on a broken TV for hours.

He had a drawer designated for me also. It was full of weird stuff. A bar of solder, a little cup of flux in wax form. Some vacuum tubes, a lot of nuts and bolts, and my favorite, a real magnet.

It was actually just a half piece from one of the TV tube, but it was magically. Not only you could suck up half of the drawer onto this but you could run it through the top of a TV and made the figures on the screen went wiggly.

Very cool indeed. And he could make the most amazing noodles. A little bit of black vinegar, a little bit of soy source, a little bit of sesame oil, a little bit of Worcestershire Sauce. Boy that was heaven.

Anyway. Time flies. Really! He used to carry me around on his shoulders, and now, my daughter was too heavy and too grown up to be carried my shoulders, and my son had taken over the riding spot.