Messing with his mind

As some of you may know, Harry and I have been covering quite a lot of kilometres each week. The wee man in his pram, me pushing it and our trusty 4 legged friend Ichiban by our side. Our first port of call each morning is King Street Wharves where young Harry gets his morning feed and Ros gets her morning cuddles. It's as perfect a symbiotic relationship as you are ever likely to see.

The destination post feeding and cuddle stop depends on the day and the weather. If it's fine we'll cruise on through to Circular Quay, head around past Woolloomooloo and up through the Cross to see what we can see. If it is Thursday we head over to the fishmarkets to see what's fresh take it home and try out a new recipe and if, as lately, the weather isn't kind we hightail it home and catch up on some chores.

In all this walking I have discovered a few inalienable truths:

1. Mothers pushing their prams will never smile at us as we pass, let alone make eye contact,
2. Drunks always smile at us as we pass, even those whose eyes are rolling in the back of their heads at the time,
3. The occupants of Chinatown invariably freak out when a 'crazy' dog gets within 10 metres of them, and lastly,
4. If you are attentive, and perhaps a wee bit nosy, you get to overhear some great stuff.

Last week while waiting for Ros to meet us by the wharf a couple with their toddler in a stroller passed us by. As they neared their child sneezed. The dad, said 'bless you', nothing odd there, but the mother loudly corrected him and insisted that the 'correct' thing to say was 'pardon you'. I'd never heard that before.

This got me to thinking, and a little reminiscing. When I was growing up my father always said 'gesundheit' when we sneezed. And I, being the impressionable type, figured that this was the right thing to say when someone sneezed. I would do so at school, at parties, wherever. In polite company this would usually elicit a confused look, at school the response would be more direct and less polite - rarely I would be asked what synagogue I went to.

Gesundheit, is the Yiddish word for health and is, so says Wikipedia, generally uttered in response to a sneeze by German, Yiddish and some North American English speakers to wish the person good health. There's no mention of the use of the word in Sydney Australia. Nor should there be because from my unscientific test of using the word for 30 some years it's pretty much unheard of.

And so I got thinking that should this lady hold her ground and insist that 'pardon you' was the appropriate response to a sneeze, and from her vehemence I had little doubt that this ground was rock solid, then some other kid was going to grow up uttering an equally odd response when a person within their hearing sneezed.

And as it was a fine day, and a longer walk was permitted, I thought on this some more.

And my conclusion? My conclusion was that this being a parent thingy was going to be serious fun. Because until little Harry is old enough to check his facts on the 'net, and to be taught right from wrong at school, I will have a major role in formulating his ideas of what's is right, what is wrong, what the facts are and how the whole thing works. And he won't know better, he won't know I'm just making this stuff up - or in my father's case that his dad has taught him to act in a way that be right somewhere but is just plain different from what other people do where he lives.

Sure there's the big stuff like teaching Harry that when you see something being done that is wrong you don't stand by, you act. That when someone says something that is hateful or harmful to others you don't let it slide but speak up. I want to teach him these things, just like my parents taught me that by their actions and their words. I don't wish to trivialise the big stuff.

In fact, if I may digress for just a second, I've never forgotten a moment that must have happened when I was only 5 or 6. Mum, Dad my Sister and I were walking down a city street one night quite late (which to a youngster means any time after 8pm I suppose) and a man was screaming and yelling at a woman, right in her face, grabbing her arm. The street was busy and everyone just walked on by. But my Dad stopped and he told the guy off, he said that behaviour was unacceptable, and Mum chimed in too. My Dad wasn't the smallest person on the street, nor the largest, but he was the bravest at the time, and Mum was too. And that moment has always stuck with me, and it always will.

It taught me about not letting stuff slide, about taking responsibility for your community, about doing the right thing. Hopefully I can be a good role model in this regard for Harry. But that's the big stuff. Where I see real fun is the little stuff, the facts on the periphery of what matters if you will.

That people who say they don't like watching sport just haven't watched enough. That your horse really does run faster if you yell at the telly and whip your bum with the form guide. That the umpire can hear you when you yell 'ball' at the television and that the Union Jack isn't in our flag because we are a snivelling colony unwilling to stand on our own two feet, but rather we won the right to put it there having beaten the Poms at every sport they ever invented.

And that was just the stuff I could think of while on our stroll. I have no doubt that with a little care and attention I can have this boy's mind so thoroughly warped by the time the teachers get their hands on him that at least a little of it will stick. We all have to have a dream don't we.

Gesundheit to you all.