May 13, 2002

He knows where Osama's hiding

I've secretly harbored hopes all these years that I would have an offspring who would follow in my footsteps as a journalist.

I'm the proudest father you ever saw of my two children, both grown and parents themselves now. Layla Mabe is a nurse at the Rockingham hospital and Robert Myers is a builder in Moore County. I most definitely don't want either to change careers.

To begin with, they're already making more money than I've ever made as a newspaper journalist, and even more important than that, they both love their work.

I've worked as a journalist, a web developer and a college instructor and been fortunate during my entire career to do work that I have truly loved.

I've always felt sorry for people who don't love their work and I have been truly blessed to have enjoyed every job I've ever had.

But just when I had given up hope of having a journalist in the family, lo and behold, up pops a possibility for the future.

Nicholas Mabe fishing last summer, when he was almost 3.

My middle grandson, 3-and-half-year-old Nicholas, surprised my daughter recently with his knowledge of current news events.

Layla was shopping with Nicholas -- one of his favorite pastimes is looking through sale papers and declaring "Me need that!" -- when they ran across some military men in uniform. Nicholas, who's not shy, asked one of the Army guys if he was "hunting for bin Waden?" (He has a little trouble with his "L's").

The Army guy was a bit surprised, being asked that by such a little guy, but after a translation of the question by Layla, who is quite fluent in Nicholasese, he answered in the affirmative.

"Then why are you here?" Nicholas asked the Army guy.

He then informed his new Army friend that he knows "where bin Waden's hiding." My astonished daughter asked him to divulge this secret and he replied "In 'Ghanistan in a cave."

Who can argue with that? The problem is, in which cave?

Where does Nicholas get his news? Is he a secret CNN junkie?

He did get a TV for his room for Christmas, but his choice of programming runs from Blue's Clues to Bob the Builder and I've seen no evidence he's gotten up to the "C's" yet, much less CNN.

Of course, sometimes when I think he's not watching TV, I get surprised. The other evening an old Andy Griffith show was on and he was playing in the floor, apparently not interested at all.

But just as Ernest T. Bass uttered one of his classic lines about his fantasy of girls saying to him "Kiss my mouth, Ernest T.," I hear Nicholas repeating the famous line almost simultaneously.

Obviously, he had not only heard it before but memorized it.

So either he's been listening to the news or listening to his father or somebody talk about Osama bin "Waden" who's hiding in that cave over in "Ghanistan." Either way, I'm impressed.

My earliest memory of a news event was the eruption of the Korean War. When that happened in June 1950, I was nearing my third birthday and all I recall understanding was something bad was happening in some strange faraway place called Korea.

I never dreamed in those early days I would be a journalist, but somehow my life has seemed to be pointed to that path.

Is it fantasy to think now that my journalism gene has been passed on, but skipping a generation? Only time will tell, but Nicholas is already well ahead of where I began. I was such a terribly shy kid it was a struggle to be able to do an interview.

And he's already started out interviewing guys in uniform.