WONDERING WHERE THE WONDER WENT

Small boy to small girl: "Are you the opposite sex or am I...?

When you're that young, everything is new and wondrous. But here's a question: Does this state of wonder age? Well, the body surely does, but wonder almost always has a longer expiration date. Especially if you keep up with the maintenance requirements that it came with.

I once learned this in an unlikely venue. Not the local workout gym, or comedy club, or even hot new community website. Young bodies fill those spaces to their physical and digital rafters. The elixir of wonder, however, doesn't belong only to the young. You'd think so, but actually it's owned by the most astonishing variety of people. Including members of this senior community I had volunteered for.

The first person I met that first morning was a grisly octogenarian manipulating his wheelchair like the Mustang fighter he used to fly over Nazi Germany. I couldn't help myself. "Why are you in such a good mood on a rainy Monday like this...?" I'm not sure if he was just laughing, or laughing at me. "Hell, I haven't lived this day before...!"

Now I hear that sort of mantra on PBS programs and in downtown Starbucks all the time. I'm never quite sure they really mean it. Having survived three marriages and World War II -- Kenny meant it. He didn't call it a philosophy, but the more we got to know each other, the more a philosopher he seemed.

America is one of the world's youngest nations. Like Chicago, still a little wet behind the civilizational ears. However, it's always in a surprising state of becoming. Changing and becoming something it wasn't before. Now maybe that's good; sometimes maybe that's bad. Either way, this has been the way it's been since we first muscled our way across the continent. From covered wagons to wheelchairs, we're a restless, tomorrow kind of people. And while the old worlds often see us as upstarts, it's safe to say we've started up some of the most extraordinary things those old worlds have ever seen. Mostly because of those wonder-filled folks in the gyms, the comedy clubs, the websites, and -- oh yes! -- Kenny.

A thought like this just might make most rainy Mondays seem worth slogging through to get to Tuesday. And then to Wednesday. And then, who knows....