Title: Fool’s Hill

When I was about 18 years old,

and returned home from college one day,

I said to Saline Blackson, the black woman who had had been my Mom’s maid for many years, and who had helped Mom raise me:

“Saline, I’m sorry I was such a damned nuisance to you when I was a little boy growing up.”

to which she replied:

“Oh Son, don’t worry about that,

Everybody has to go up Fool’s Hill,

before they can get to the Other Side.”

WHAT THIS MEANS TO ME:

1. Everybody does some foolish stuff when growing up.

2. A lot of Wise Adults expect and recognize our childhood foolish behavior as one of the “Trappings of Youth,” and

3. they Forgive us, and

4. They Expect us to “Grow Out” of some of it … someday.