Nautilus

When Loretta and I were raising our three sons, I used the molusc known as the Nautilus to illustrate how the mind of the child goes through its stages (Jean Piaget) — the Nautilus has a different chamber for each year of its young life. I still have a ten or twelve chambered shell in my drawer, which my brother Rudy sent me. (The molusc is a denizen of California.)

There comes a time when the toddler now recognizes his father even though he’s wearing a hat, and I now have a son who recognizes my weak points (a great, generous son). The point of this is I recognize the patterns repeated by a mind greater than my own (something more fortunate minds still can’t acknowledge) in giving form and substance to various aspects of Nature. Of course, with humans there is still ego that has to be accounted for.

Let it be publicized henceforth and forever, the mind of a child develops the way it does because it has been tested and tried in a workshop known as Nature, and I don’t need some self-syled authority, no matter how many degree panels he has sat before, to tell me it’s due to chance.