High Saturation

This is Sage’s Dad, chiming in at the suggestion of Cindy, Sage’s Mom.  I’ve never blogged before, and I probably never will again, although I often teach about words like “blog” in my Linguistics Intro course at Wake Forest: such words are called “clippings” but the funny and perplexing thing about “blog” is that it got clipped at the wrong place, at a spot where no other word I know of has gotten clipped.  There’s just no logic in cutting off the first two ingredients of the morpheme “web” and leaving the “b” to attach itself to “log.”

Anyway, when I was called upon to behold Sage’s accomplishments of last weekend, two thoughts came to mind.  The first is not maudlin, the second is.

My first thought was that at the age of 13, Sage came home from school and said something like this: “Dad, it’s not fair: in PE class, if you can jump 12 feet you get an A, if it’s 10 feet, it’s a B, if it’s 8, you get a C.”  I said “Life isn’t fair.  You weren’t meant to jump 12.”

Obviously I was wrong.  She just jumped the equivalent of 15 feet.

I was taught by my father never to say “I’m proud” because “Pride goeth before a fall”, said my Dad.  So I have never said that to Sage, nor about Sage.  However, I am the following: amazed, choked up, incredulous, baffled, stirred, even shaken, with apologies to James Bond.

The second thought comes from a rather obscure Country Song.  Here are some of its words:

If life is like a candle bright, Death must be the wind; You can close your window tight, But it still comes rolling in.

So I will climb the highest hill, And watch the setting sun, And pray that I won’t feel the chill, Till I’m too old to die young!!

Chorus: Let me watch my children grow, To see what they become; Lord, don’t let that cold wind blow, Till I’m Too Old to Die Young.

As I sign off from this, my one and only blog, I want to express gratitude to fate that I got to see what my children became.  It is all wonderful.

Billy Hamilton, father of Sage.