ANAGRAM

Two things that are close to this old teacher's heart:

playing with words (like this anagram cartoon that was in today's paper)

and a Nate story about a play on words

I had forgotten what an anagram was. That's neat that you can take the letters in a word ("Yemen") and rearrange them into another word ("enemy"). That's fun to play. Elvis lives.

I grew up in a house where my father (Popi) played with words all the time. It tickled the listener ONLY because it tickled Popi so much. He had certain jokes (like slapping your back and saying "good to see your back again") that were so overused and so anticipated...that they would be completely maddening if you didn't see the merriment that Popi got out of them.

Nate is growing up just like Popi. That's a mini-miracle, considering he never knew Popi. But right now, Nate is in a rhyming phase, and doing "why did the chicken cross the road" jokes, and seeing irony in language ("the countertop can't count!"). Last night he spent the night over here and was soaking in bubbles and playing with his plastic bath toys. I heard Nate say to a pink plastic crab..."Do you know what your name will be? Mr. Taxicrab!".

Can you be a genius at five?

"Let the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing in your eyes, O Lord, my strength and my salvation." Psalm 19.14 BBE