Slim Randles'  Home Country

It's kid time again           

[JULY 1, 2006]  It's kid time again around here. Babies everywhere. Baby trees growing in the yards, baby calves romping in the pastures, and baby humans grinning and demanding bottles and love. There are puppies toddling around the yards, kittens peeking out from under the

houses where they were born and baby birds demanding a meal that would gag a sick dog off a gut truck.

Now and then one of those baby birds gets too ambitious and takes a dive out of the nest into the yard, leaving us with a problem, as we have all been told you can't touch them or the mother will reject them, but if we leave them on the ground, they'll die.

Fortunately, most babies are smart enough to stick close to home and mama and make us proud of how clever they are.

The only real problem we have with human babies is guessing which gender they are. It's a terrible thing to tell someone their baby girl is just gorgeous, only to discover it's a boy, and vice versa. The baby doesn't care, but it sure hurts mom's and dad's feelings. This whole gender identification is getting more difficult with the way our society's changing, too.

It used to be that baby boys were dressed in blue or wrapped in a blue receiving blanket. Little girls came likewise in pink. This was a courtesy to us baby admirers, who could then tell instantly whether to call the baby handsome or pretty. But now you can't even rely on the newborn baby with pierced ears being a girl.

Now old Herb Collins is the one to show us the way on this new dilemma. Herb has been admiring babies since God made dirt, and he sailed right over this gender-identification process without missing a beat.

Whenever some young person holds up an infant these days and says, "This is my new baby, Mr. Collins," Herb takes a minute to admire the way the youngster's cheeks pooch out, and then he beams and says, "Now THAT'S what I call a baby!"

[Slim Randles]

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