Three Things

My father told me three things he would later come to regret. 

Deer Diary

            Usually it was my habit of ignoring his instructions that made him angry. Actually paying attention to his counsel, then applying it in ways that he did not expect or approve of, that’s what really put a burr under his saddle. The saddest part is, upsetting him was never my intention. It just seemed to happen regardless of my behavior. 

            Dad seldom gave advice. He preferred directives, usually preceded by the phrase, “You’re doing that wrong”, or “Here, let me show you something”, which was really just his other way of saying, “You’re doing that wrong.”

            The most useful and lasting advice Dad had to offer came from his candid observations.

            He couldn't go into a McDonalds, for example, without marveling at the organizational efficiency of the place. He always commented on the unidirectional flow of raw materials from the back of the building to the front, with value added along the way. What didn’t go out the front doors and into waiting cars, he noted, was neatly channeled into trashcans, and finally cycled in an efficient stream to the dumpster out back. Every action, every stop along the way was planned and executed for maximizing profit. He all but glowed over the prospect of cause, effect, and the managerial control that made it all work. 

            This marriage of knowledge, organization, and administrative power were epitomized by the university medical center where he worked, personified by the doctors whose budgets he managed, whose retirements he planned, whose paychecks he signed at the close of every month. 

            Dad practically worshipped order and control. His professional world functioned according to plan, with strict adherence to the dictates of established processes and concrete calendar deadlines. Things worked because people worked to keep things working. It wasn’t supposed to be fun. 

            Creative endeavors were a sideline, to be indulged only after the real work was finished. Even then, creativity should be productive. Practical. Exploration for its own sake was an unsupportable proposition, indistinguishable from play – which is why his occasional epiphanies to the contrary stood out in such stark contrast to his overall worldview, and carried so much more weight.

            Of the many opinions, directives, examples, orders, platitudes and heartfelt paternal memoranda Dad offered over the years, only a few somehow found their way through my adolescent armor, took root in my mind, and burrowed in to stay. They may have been issued from his castle of practical conservatism, but once filtered through the rebellious prism of my rationally contrarian personality, these three recommendations did more to convince me to pursue my own devices and fulfill my personal, creative agendas:

1. “An academic degree is like a bus ticket. If you don’t want to go where the ticket takes you, there’s no reason to waste your time getting it.”

2. “Most people are too busy making a living to ever make any money.”

3. “It doesn’t matter what you do for a living, as long as you can pay the bills.”

“An academic degree is like a bus ticket.”

  

            Academic medicine is a process marked by an endless series of milestones: diplomas, degrees, certifications, fellowships, continuing education and re-certification programs. After medical school comes the residency match, the pyramid system, and specialty board certification, followed by competition for positions in fellowship programs, election to national and international specialty colleges and professional societies, and hierarchal status within these same organizations. The academic career track provides even more markers of success (or lack thereof), in research and publication, assistant and associate professorships, committee assignments, and department administration. 

            As a surgical intern, all of these opportunities were laid out before me. If I worked hard enough, kept my nose clean, kept my mouth shut, did everything I was told without complaint, anticipated pitfalls, kept up with my reading, and behaved responsibly, one day I could make it all the way to Chief Resident. I might be offered a fellowship, then asked to stay on as an attending physician, and work my way up the academic ladder. If I proved to be good enough at medicine and politics, I might even enter the realm of administrative decision making.

            Yes, the road to being a surgeon was rough. I’d worked hard to buy the ticket, and found my seat on the bus. Once I got far enough along the path to see where that road was leading, though, I decided I didn't want to go there after all. 

            Why? In a word, it wasn’t fun.

         (“Work isn't supposed to be fun! That’s why they call it work!”)

           I needed a ticket to an enjoyable life. I didn’t need a ticket to academic surgery. So why not go for a solo practice? Just hang out my shingle and …

            Non-academic practices have pecking orders that rival the educational model, with rewards correspondingly based on competitive performance and supervisory review of board certification, licensure, association membership, continuing education and hospital affiliation. In addition, a solo medical practice offered all the hazards and pitfalls of self-employment plus the added burden of malpractice liability - without any preparatory business training, and peoples’ lives hanging in the balance. 

            I didn’t want a ticket to go there, either.

            So, what do you do when you buy a ticket, let it take you where you thought you wanted to go, then find out upon arrival you don't really want to be there? I’d earned my ticket to medical school, and gave doctoring my best shot. More important, I took an oath as a physician, and I meant it: Primo Non Nocere (First, Do No Harm). If my heart wasn’t in it, the most responsible way for me to do no harm was to exit, stage right. But if you do that, what is waiting for you in the wings? Are you allowed to get a ticket to someplace else? And if so, where did I want to go? 

            I didn't know. If only my dad had offered some guiding insights for the uncertain traveller…

“Most people are too busy making a living to ever make any money.”

            Dad’s general philosophy allowed that people who worked (to keep things working) did so grudgingly, and only because it was the only way they could put food on the table. Most people, in his view, were lazy, and, given the opportunity to stop working and sponge off of society, would do so at a moment’s notice, and happily keep at it for the rest of their lives. This was fact.

            But he could also see that doing right by society, holding down a regular job and providing your family rarely allowed anyone to get ahead. To become wealthy, you had to have an angle. You had to be clever, and work extra hard to come up with an original idea, then develop and promote that idea until it finally paid off.  

           He wasn’t talking about pipe dreams. He was talking about ideas that had real potential in the marketplace. Unfortunately, he noted, few people had the time, the energy or the intellectual and financial resources to take a concept from the idea stage to the store shelves at Wal-Mart.

            If people are too busy making a living to accumulate wealth, it follows that someone intent on moneymaking should not worry so much about the day-to-day cares of bill paying. Rather they should lower immediate expectations, minimize their cost of living in the short term, and spend whatever resources they have carefully, selfishly creating the environment and the means to produce something original. If they succeed, they’re winners. If not, then they have to go back to the grind of daily labor – and pay off all the debt they’d racked up by following their dreams.

            Legendary recording artist Sam Cook announced in his late teens that he was never going to get a job. His family was appalled. They knew that if you didn't work, you didn't eat.

            For his part, Cook observed that people in his family who worked for an hourly wage got paid on Friday, and were broke again the following Monday. They existed to barely make ends meet, in an endless cycle of labor and debt. Sam Cook wanted more than that. He broke away from the family mold, followed his talent, and went on to become one of the most successful, most influential performers of his time.

            I think Dad would have approved of Sam Cook. He certainly approved of Elvis Presley, a man with whom he identified at a basic level. Elvis was a truck driver from the country, who took a chance on his talent, and made it to the top of the list. Elvis made something of himself. He succeeded, against all odds.

            Both Sam Cook and Elvis Presley succeeded in unlikely careers because of their understanding that they each had a remarkable talent, and to capitalize on that talent, they would have to step boldly away from traditional societal and professional roles. Dad admired that, because they succeeded. 

            He also, once, admired an artist – for his work, to be sure, but mostly for his business acumen.

            Clark Bailey was an art professor at the Oklahoma College of Liberal Arts, where my father served as the school’s business administrator. An accomplished metal sculptor, Bailey wrought wonderfully sinuous human figures and abstract forms from such simple, available materials as coat hangers and car bumpers. By the time we came to know him, the artist had achieved a certain level of national recognition, and was making the best of it. 

           My father, whose signature appeared on the professor’s monthly paychecks (and likely his income tax forms as well), was well acquainted with the artist’s finances, and his sources of income both on campus and off:

            “That Clark Bailey has the world by the tail, let me tell you! He’s the only artist I know who found a way to beat the system, and boy he beats it like a drum.”

            Clark Bailey found a way to make a living that also left him plenty of free time to make money. His talent for doing so was separate from his artistic ability. Making art was a requirement of his chosen profession; making money was a function of his ability to use his art-making time to make business connections as well, and to put those connections to good use.

            “I was over at his house last weekend for a cookout, and he took me out to his garage to show me his collection of sculptures. Most people have no idea how many he has done, and he likes to keep it that way. That’s his secret. Now, toward the end of the year, he’ll decide how much money he wants to make, in addition to his salary. Then, he says ‘I’ll sell that one, that one, and that one.’ Those are the ones he’ll release to the galleries for sale. The rest he keeps in mothballs until next year. This guy literally sets his own pay scale! Now that’s freedom, I’ll tell you. The man is more than a good artist. He’s a brilliant businessman.”

            Create a consistent product line. Build demand. Manage the market. Got it. I don't know why that story wedged its way into the mind of a pre-teen whose only career interest was to someday get to medical school, but when it did, it sunk deep, permanent roots.

            The other enduring lesson I learned from Mr. Bailey was the urgency to create now, today, while you still can. Clark Bailey’s promising career was cut short in a hunting accident, just about the time I was entering high school. His passing reinforced the unspoken imperative given by my mother’s premature death: Your life comes with an expiration date, and it’s sooner than you think. Don’t put off happiness for some point in the future. You may not last that long.

“It doesn’t matter what you do for a living…”

          There was something else my father told me, about a man he once met in the mountains of eastern Arkansas, back in the 1950’s.  It was meant to be an object lesson in laziness:

      “He was as poor as a church mouse, this fellow, lived way up in the middle of the woods. A real Hillbilly. This man had nothing more than a shack to live in, and an outhouse, and an old dog for company. He kept a little garden out back, I guess, but mostly he ate whatever he was able to shoot.

      “What money he made came to him in the summer and fall, when he would act as a guide for people who wanted to fish in the mountain lakes, or hunt up in the hills.  He had no idea how poor he was. I once heard him brag to us city folks how foolish he thought we were:

‘I work two, three months out of the year, taking city-slickers up to the hills to catch fish or shoot some deer. I figger I’m walkin’ up that a-way anyhow, so what’s it to me if they want to foller along? They give me a hunnert dollars for it. A hunnert dollars! Come wintertime I can make three thousand, easy as that. The rest of the year I stay in my cabin, hunt and fish when I want to, come and go as I please. I don’t know many city folk as rich as that.’”

I don’t know many, either.

         Dad’s reason for telling me this story was cautionary: Don't sell yourself short. 

          Instead I took it as a grand parable: Decide what makes you happy, and pay no attention to how others judge your success.

          In my first half-century on the planet, I’ve been a student, a performer, a union laborer, a doctor, and an artist. According to many who have shared their opinions with me over the years, my father chief among them, the thing I was supposed to be best at was medicine. 

          Sorry, Pop. I’m much happier drawing pictures for a living. 

          I had been drawing pictures for twenty years when my father dropped by the studio for an unexpected visit. He rarely visited our shop, and his discomfort was apparent, as it always was when he saw me in the context of my art. That day, though, he seemed to have come to a place of resignation, if not acceptance. Whatever it was that led to his reluctant change of heart, I would never know. Maybe it just took that long to realize that art for me was more than a distracting sideline, or to acknowledge that with the passage of so much time away from the hospital, I would never be able to catch up with the medical advances required to go back into practice.

          As he looked around the studio, its walls filled with my drawings and my wife’s paintings, he seemed to relax for a moment.

          He sighed audibly, and said, “Son, I don't know what you do. I don't know why you do it. But you seem happy. You always seem to find a way to keep yourself fed… and you‘ve never once asked me for money.”

          That’s as close to praise as I ever could have expected from my father the accountant, and far more than I’d ever hoped for. 

          I hope at some point that he realized that whatever success I’d achieved came mostly from listening to his advice.

The Art of Science, and Beyond

In the classroom, in the gallery, in street art festivals, and in online discussion groups, the battle rages about the legitimacy of art.

Left Brain

No, this is not an indictment of art in general (let’s assume for this essay that art is legitimate, and Art as a discipline has its good qualities), but rather seems to be a criticism of art by category.

Right Brain

Art professors, critics, dealers, collectors, and obedient art students will tell you that good art must be Fine Art, not the commercial variety.

Fine Art, according to at least one Internet definition, is “creative art, esp. visual art, whose products are to be appreciated primarily or solely for their imaginative, aesthetic, or intellectual content.”

That means these work products don't actually do anything, which apparently is all it takes to make them Fine.

Only Fine Art is Real Art.

Commercial art may be attractive, imaginative, and intellectually informed, but it is also intentionally useful. It is this final quality that calls its legitimacy into question. Commercial art is not Art.

Graphic Design is not Art (unless you consider, say, some of the concert flyers and album covers of the 1960’s, a certain soup label or soap box reproduced as well-known serigraphs, or perhaps political posters from early in the last century).

Advertising Illustration is not Art (unless you have the original artwork, or maybe vintage magazine covers, ads or calendar pages bearing the work of Norman Rockwell or Maxfield Parrish, or select Vargas pin-ups.)

Book Illustration is not Art (unless the books are old enough to be broken apart, and the individual title plates and diagrams framed and sold separately, or the drawings are done by a rhyming doctor in the company of a tall cat.)

Product Design is certainly not Art (even though products like Tiffany lamps, Chippendale chairs and Faberge eggs generate a lot of interest at auction, among a lot of the same people who place bids on expensive paintings; and some design styles have come to define whole periods of history –  Art Deco, anyone?).

No, only Fine Art is Real Art.

I have always been curious as to how and why the visual arts community came up with such an absurd bias. Certainly music has its genres, and its critics – but most people within and outside of the business agree, more or less, to Duke Ellington’s assessment that there are but two kinds of music: “ Good music, and the other kind.” The Duke was happy to allow the listener to decide, while doing his best to make only good music.

Why is it that viewers of art are not 
afforded the same freedom as music fans?

I’m not a musician, but I know how to distinguish the one kind from the other, from jingle to pop tune to symphony, along a sliding scale that has changed dramatically over time.

As an artist, I am aware of the weight and variety of artistic content in our culture (some good, some the other kind), the vast majority of which resides entirely outside of established galleries, museums, and academic studios.

Why is it that viewers of art are not afforded the same freedom of choice as music fans, the same authority to know what they like, and the permission to like what they know, without running afoul of the art cognoscenti?  Apparently the Art Police know something we don't, and they’re not telling us what it is.

Or perhaps they have determined that they are the only ones who are qualified to know the Real from the Fake, and cannot trust amateurs to either create Fine Art, or recognize it when we see it. (Unless we, in our ignorance, i.e., without formal training, are able to create decorative artworks out of commonly available materials, which is then reverently called Folk Art. Folk Art is Real Art, too.)

Such weighted distinctions are not confined to the studio or the gallery. My academic training was in the lecture halls and laboratories of the science department, a background that prepared me well to comprehend the landscape of artistic debate. (There are, surprisingly, a great many parallels between the two disciplines.)

The same artistic attitudes prevail 

regarding the two branches of science.

In the hallowed halls of scientific academia, artistic prejudices have a near perfect doppelganger, with comparative value starkly delineated between the processes of knowledge generation (Pure Science) and practical application (Applied Science).

The parallels here are clear, with Pure Science (a.k.a. Research) equivalent to Fine Art (‘Art for Art’s Sake’ has precisely the same self-referential motivation and authority as ‘Research for the Advancement of Knowledge’), and Applied Science (a.k.a. Technology) identical to Commercial Art, in that both take original ideas and put them to work in the real world. Painting leads to illustration just as the discovery of polymerization leads to nylon jackets and plumbing fixtures.

Oddly enough, the same artistic attitudes prevail regarding these two branches of science: Research is exalted, rigorously defined and highly regulated, and Technology is frowned upon as the greedy, commercial, prostitute stepchild of the real thing.

Quantifying metallurgical properties, calculating angles and shearing forces constitute proper mental exercises of the pure scientist. Making a decent pair of scissors is the business of technicians, be they metallurgical engineers, steelworkers, designers or craftsmen.

Perhaps this is the truest commonality of the scientific and artistic disciplines, the fact that to get anything done requires the creative talents of craftsmen (who, it is widely agreed, are not Artists, unless and until they demonstrate an ability to produce art objects completely lacking in functionality). These are the individuals whose passion and ability combine to produce utility – that magical application of creative sweat equity that either proves or debunks the worth of pure theory, and either turns it into a tool to benefit the masses, or shows it to be empty of practical value.

These workers are the embodiment of Prometheus, whose function is to bring the fire from Olympus to the people – and be forever after punished for their service. Craftsmen, be they potters, welders, typographers, illustrators or laboratory technicians, are judged by the practical and commercial utility of their work product. How could they be artists?

Where is the creative act?

Assuming that there is a qualitative difference between the Creator (Fine Artist/Pure Scientist) and the Producer (Commercial Artist/Technician), what happens when a Producer, using some initial concepts generated from the ether by a Creator, comes up with something new – something beyond what the original creator originally envisioned? Couldn't a talented craftsman be inspired to add a little of his or her own creativity to leaven the mix?

The fact that there is a practical 

outcome is actually a bonus.

Of course this happens all the time. We call these people Designers.

After all, it is the basic job description of the designer to generate new concepts from established theory, and new products from available materials. This is creation in its purest sense, involving both the qualities of research and the generation of original ideas in the making of a new, tangible, functional thing.

The fact that there is a practical outcome is actually a bonus – one that ought to elevate this class of Creators to a higher level of social and cultural esteem than the pure thinkers, who are content to conceptualize and imagine as ends in themselves.

Perhaps this is why the purist theoreticians, artistic and scientific alike, feel that they must work so hard to keep the uninformed and uninitiated out of their ivory towers, away from their vaulted ateliers. Outside of their own society, with its restrictive rules and structures and definitions, it is difficult to demonstrate the value of their creative energies.

One cannot help but wonder if this defensive attitude truly does more harm than good, perpetuating an interdisciplinary antagonism that is of little use to them or anyone else. Maybe one day the theoretical artists and scientists will come to understand that no one is trying to take away their toys, or their prestige, or their ability to ponder.

Maybe then they will be able to embrace creativity wherever it is found, and call it good.

The Virtues of Failing Often

There’s something I’ve noticed about us creative types. We spend a great deal of time coming up with dozens of reasons why our ideas won't work.

I’m not sure where this insecurity comes from, whether it’s the warnings from parents, teachers, preachers and former bosses, reminding us that we have no business stepping beyond established boundaries, or our years of experience watching many of our grand ideas fail to work out as we planned. Or maybe it’s the part of us that keeps trying to be ‘normal’, and accepted by the rest of the world that hinders us from following up on our latest plans.

Whatever it is, it sure keeps us from getting a lot of stuff done.

At any one time in our studio, there will be ten to thirty drawings unfinished, five blogs waiting to be written, a dozen short stories and a novel in progress, and that’s just on my side of the room. Add another twenty paintings and portraits, fifty pieces of jewelry in line to be completed and photographed, web site updates and a half-dozen videos looking for a couple hours each of uninterrupted voice-over and editing, and you’re starting to get a handle on Sue Ellen’s side.

Tiger Swallowtail

It’s not that we have too much on our plate, and certainly not that we’re complaining about being busy. Far from it. What bothers us is the extra inertia it takes to get any one project moving forward.

When I sit down to draw, for example, often as not I can make room for the telephone, mail, orders, and customers stopping in to visit, and still get the work done. What I have a harder time ignoring is the buzzing voice in my head saying, “ You’re drawing this when you should be figuring last month’s sales tax? This picture isn't even funny! It’s weird. And only a few pathologists on the world will ever get the joke, anyway. Besides, I thought you were planning to write a book. What happened to that brilliant idea? What’s wrong with you?”

 Failing ‘early and often’ gets 

the good ideas off the ground, 

and the bad ones out of the way.

All of which may be valid points, except that when I do sit down to write, the guilt monster inside my head starts yammering on about the artwork: “Shouldn't you be working on that medical picture? You say you're an artist, but how many things did you actually draw last year – like, three maybe?”

I see it all the time in other artists, too. They’ll come up with a terrific idea, create an incredible new something, then drop it and move on to the next thing that catches their interest. When asked why they never developed the idea, there are a thousand reasons why it just wouldn't have worked.

“No one would pay money for that.” (And yet somehow you sold the first one.)

“They would cost too much to make.” (Which is why you figure out a way to make a lot of them, so that the cost per item is manageable – and find a way to fund the process while you're doing it.)

“It was just a fluke.” (You have a long history of such flukes.)

“I talked to some guy about it, but he wanted to keep 90% of the money.” (Which is a decent percentage if some else takes your idea to the market. It's basically free money, and you don't want to manage all the production, sales and distribution stuff, anyway.)

“It probably wouldn't work, anyway.”

As much as it pains me to see other creative folks let what seem to be good opportunities slip away, I try to use these situations to remind myself not to let my good ideas go to waste. We struggle with every one of these objections too, and the best answer we’ve come up with is this: “Let’s just do it and see.”

That’s the trouble with creating. You can never know whether or not an idea will work, because it hasn't ever been done before. And unless you try, that situation will never change.

We like seeing our new ideas and new products succeed, so much so that it’s worth the many failures we encounter along the way. Failing ‘early and often’ gets the good ideas off the ground, and the bad ones out of the way before they can weigh us down with second thoughts about the wisdom of trying.

It’s still not easy telling the nay-saying monsters to keep their peace, but the fact that we are here every day investing our time in creating new pictures, new stories, new fashions, and new programs means that our chances for continued success are always improving. Throw in a thick streak of stubbornness, and it’s a good bet we will still be in business, failing a lot and succeeding enough, for a long time to come.

(There. That blog’s finished. Now, off to the drawing board…)

Watch Your Language.

I loved Red Skelton – even had the privilege to meet him once – and I completely understand his choice to eschew the use of profanity. For Mr. Skelton, it was an absolute rule: “If you can’t be funny without profanity,” he told me (me, and about 10,000 others in attendance that evening),  “Chances are you aren't very funny to begin with.”

Dirty Mind

He could be right, but I sure do laugh at a colorful turn of phrase every now and then. Naughty is naughty, whether it’s George Carlin’s list of The Words You Can't Say on TV, or Red’s Mean Widdle Kid - and in the hands of gifted performers, the entire spectrum of naughty can be darned funny indeed.

Clem Kadiddlehopper’s gentle tenet notwithstanding, I confess to my own occasional indulgence in expletive expression, and confirm my unwillingness to remove an entire phalanx of communication from my creative armamentarium, either visually or verbally.

I may choose to limit what I lift from my personal lexicon, just as my wife chooses colors from her palette of paints – but I do so to enhance my work, not because I feel like I'm getting away with anything.

Not everything people do is clean and pretty. Redd Foxx used to say, "There's a reason why I use words like $%*#, and %^@&. . . People do." Such functional activities can certainly be described in non-profane terms, appropriately and to great effect. I applaud anyone creative enough, talented enough, or even virtuous enough to do that. I also applaud those who are creative enough, talented enough, and virtuous enough use scatological terms effectively, unvarnished and (sic) un-adulterated.

There's a reason why I use such language, and occasionally such imagery. These words reside in their own area of the brain, apart from our regular vocabulary. (I find that special anatomical treatment noteworthy, and endlessly intriguing.) Employed thoughtfully, they add to the content, the depth, the meaning, the clarity, and the humor of my work, as well as my daily conversation.

Children understand profanity and its appropriate use before they're two years old. They even know to modify their language among differing social groups, absorbing cues from their social environment, and directly the admonitions of parents and teachers.

After a half century of such training, even I am beginning to catch on. When I speak to church groups, elementary students, a barroom full of Marines, or even a motley group of writers or artists, I find I am quite capable of adjusting the content of my presentation accordingly. 

By the time they could speak in sentences, both of my sons understood that the word ‘dam’ meant a wall of rocks and mud that held back water in the creek, and something people say sometimes when they are upset. Their preschool teacher once pulled me aside to report that one of the boys said ‘dammit’ out loud in her class that day. She assured me that it wasn’t something he had learned in daycare, since none of her teachers spoke that way to the children, and she hoped the incident wouldn't reflect poorly on the school.

“Don't worry,” I told her. “He learned it from me.”

Her relief melted into shocked amusement. “I’ve been teaching little ones for 16 years, and you're the first parent who has ever admitted that!”

Why wouldn't I? I want my kids to be functionally literate as they navigate their way through life. Profanity, from the vulgar to the refined, will permeate their experience in society, in popular media, in literature, in their business and personal interactions.

Ignorance is seldom an asset in the real world.

When my kids were a little older, around 6 or 7, they wanted to see a Jackie Chan movie (which I was assured would be ‘family friendly’), to celebrate their advancement to yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do.  Chan was as jovial and entertaining as ever, though his partner relied more on verbal assaults to subdue bad guys than his martial arts skills.

On the way back to the car, my seven year old asked the obvious question: “Dad, why do grown-ups say ‘bullshit’ so much?” – a query that instantly brought back the taste of the ivory soap that my grandmother used to wash out my mouth, the first and only time I uttered that word in her presence. Must’ve been just about his age…

“Dad?”

“What, son?”

“Why do grown-ups say ‘bullshit’ so much? That guy sure said it a lot in the movie.”

I tried not to laugh at his innocent question, or his earnest sincerity - grateful that his great-grandmother was nowhere within earshot. Couldn't help smiling, though.

“Well, that’s kind of an adult word for nonsense, son. Grown-ups say that whenever they think of something that it worthless. I guess they could say ‘Big piles of marshmallow crème!’, but that stuff is too tasty. See what I mean?”

His little brother giggled and mimicked: “Big piles of marshmallow creeeme!”

The older boy thought for a minute, furrowing his brow as he climbed into the car, and buckled his seatbelt.

Sunflowers

“That’s silly,” he said, finally. “That stuff is not either worthless. People could put it in their compost pile. Then it would grow yummy vegetables.”

That it would, my boy. 
That it would.