08/20/08 Fun or work

Fun or Work Youthful enthusiasm has a way of running right into reality. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be back in one minute to explain. The young mind can see almost every situation as an opportunity for fun. But time and experience can induce a little caution into your thought process so little red flags are attached to certain encounters and are cataloged as not so fun. One day Dad told my brother, a friend and me he had a job for us, but we would need to saddle our horses. Well, we heard saddle your horses but somehow the word job, was overlooked. We got on our horses and went to get our instructions. Dad handed each of us a freshly sharpened hoe and told us to ride out in the fields and weed the scattered Russian thistles. A little disappointment flickered in our minds, but then a vision of whacking a weed off at ground level maybe even on the run like a polo player took over and we were more than ready to go find that first weed. We found that weed and we also met reality. The thistle proved to be a little tougher than we thought and there was no way our puny arms could generate enough power to rub out those plants in one clean cut. Besides, our idea of scattered proved to be a total false image of the true number of weeds we had to eliminate. Wait a minute  this is not fun and the reality was that we couldn't quit until we did put in an honest effort. Dad just wouldn't understand. One thing I do know for sure; the word weed has nothing to do with fun. I'm Jeff Keane.