One of life’s greatest childhood debates revisited

I often think back to when I was a kid. Back to a time when our developing brains had just grasped the English language and discovered its true potential. Sure we learn the basics first, ‘mama’ ‘papa’ ‘give me ..........’ but we progress ever so quickly from there. We learn to manipulate, lie, make and set moral boundaries that stay with us for the rest of our lives. Language and the ability to communicate is a powerful tool that is often taken for granted.

Back to my topic… I feel that one of the more interesting communication milestones reached as we grow is that of debate. It fascinates me that we learn this ability so early on in life given the rather pointless nature of discussion and informal debate in the life of a 4 or 5 year old. Still, we persevered and perhaps benefited from it at the end of the day (character building some would say…).

After having failed miserably at communicating our point across to adults (“…and that’s why I NEED a bag of Easter eggs and a large net for school tomorrow.”) we lower our standards and have the most imaginative and drawn out discussions with other random 5 year old kids we stumble across at school. I thought it would be fun to revive one of these childhood debates. Partially because it would be a terrible shame to have gone through all that and not used it to our benefit in a discussion now that we are older and more mature (of course we are).

Here goes…

Discussion topic: My Dada (grandfather) is way cooler than your Dada.

I really do believe that I had the coolest grandpa and I’ll be impressed if anyone can come close.

My Dada.

Sure he wasn’t a perfect man but he did have a band. He played almost every type of Indian instrument beautifully. I remember him happily jamming with all his sons in the lounge of our house at over 70 years of age. He even rode motorbikes! My dada was originally a builder and to my knowledge helped in the making of some of Durban’s finest buildings. He also managed to bag the daughter of the owner of a once successful soda pop company as his wife (go figure, chicks had a thing for guys in a band back then too…).

In his later years he occupied himself by building fine furniture (most of which is still in use at our home). It would have been nice to see him in action as a young man. Alas the majority of my memories of him are of him pruning the roses in the garden wearing his beige hat or in his workshop swearing in frustration at workers he caught mixing cement the wrong way or something along those lines.

How cool was your gramps then?

(Alternantively you could revive another debate topic that stood out from your past.)