Last weekend a friend sent me a text from the Heinz Museum, and we met to discuss the day that she and her husband had just experienced. You see, their daughter-in-law was in charge of a major event that, had I been more observant, would quite possibly have been the most awesome experience of my youngest grandson’s life.  Yeah, he’s only 19 months old, but Pete’s primary obsession can only be described as all encompassing. He is completely obsessed with vehicles: buses, cars, lawn mowers, ambulances, but most of all trucks.  Let’s face it, he’s probably not unique in his love of these things, but, compared to the other five kids, he’s the most attached, the most enthralled, the most enamored by them.

If you give him a choice of fifteen different types of toys, he makes a beeline directly to the cars and trucks. He insists that I let him sit on my lap in the car so that he can pretend to drive and then he proceeds to jack up every dial and control in the entire car.  He hears a vehicle and screams tru or ka-r.  He runs to the window every time a vehicle comes near, and when he’s strapped in his child seat, a.k.a. restraint cage, he tries to rip out the seat belts if he sees a school bus or a big truck. This kid should be in someone’s automobile ads. I guarantee you he’d sell more vehicles than any 12 screaming old men or sexy young ladies.

So, back to the event that I missed.  It was called something like “Touch a Truck.”  The Junior League of Pittsburgh sponsors activities like American Girl Fashion Shows and Touch a Truck.  They should describe them as Heaven on Earth for little kids.  Seriously, Pete would have had to have two diapers if I had known about this earlier and taken him there.

These wonderful folks bring every type of vehicle they can get their hands on to Smallman Street in Pittsburgh, and then they let the kids literally have at it. There were ambulances, fire trucks, cement trucks, dump trucks, front loaders, you name it. All I could think about was “Why should the kids in Pittsburgh be the only ones to enjoy American Girl fashion shows and Touch a Truck events?”

I don’t want to wait until next year for Pete and all of my American Girl-owning granddaughters to get to experience the joys of childhood in such a great way.

It’s funny, however, when you suggest something like this as a fundraiser.  Even at $15 a person, this would seem to be a serious money maker, but everyone I’ve mentioned it to has scattered like roaches when the Orkin guy enters the room.  I expected to see every nonprofit in need of funds to look like dogs waiting at the door with their ears perked up every time they hear a sound.  This lack of enthusiasm is probably because they have been burned too many times by too many ideas that the presenter thinks is the greatest idea in the world.  Can a friend raiser really be a good fundraiser?

We all know that when our kids and grandkids are concerned, there are no barriers to entry. People practically mortgage their homes to take their kids to Disneyworld, why not a truck touching, doll fashion show day? Every little boy wants to drive a truck and every girl between the ages of five and 10 would gladly dress up their prize dolls for an event like this.

Come on.  Twenty phone calls and a volunteer group of 15 people could pull either or both of these events off with ease.  It only takes some creativity, a little donated space, a heck of a lot of liability insurance and, of course, some alcohol.  (Hopefully, the alcohol would be for after the event.)

As I sat in a circle with my six grand kids and listened to them talk about their lives, their friends, their toys, their challenges and their joys, I couldn’t help but contemplate what their futures might hold. They could easily live to be 100 or more years old, and what will the quality of their lives be for the next nine or more decades?

Hopefully, they will all have an opportunity to get an education, and they’ll probably have a lot more intelligent advice along the way than was available to me in the 60s. But what about the rest? What else will be resolved, improved, repaired, destroyed, invented, or resurrected?

Will the climate continue to deteriorate? Will food become less plentiful as the world population zooms to 10 billion people? As I dug deeply into the past decades of my life, the single most dramatic technological change that has occurred (to the point of seemingly attaching itself to our bodies) is the smartphone. It’s still a little difficult to comprehend the power of this device and the impact that it’s had on our lives already, but there’s no more dramatic technological advance to pedestal-ize than that minicomputer.

“What percent of fat, proteins, or carbs should I consume, Siri?” “Let me check on that,” she politely answers. “How many angels can fit on the head of a pin, Siri?” “An infinite number of angels can fit on a pin, Nick,” she replies.

We have our clocks, our schedules, our email accounts, our message systems, our phone directories and contact lists, our weather reports, our bank and credit card accounts, our word processors, and that’s truly just the beginning because everything that has ever been recorded in human history can be searched via the web on our smartphones.

But these amazing devices have also both increased and simultaneously marginalized our ability to communicate directly with each other. Supposedly, 85 percent of what we do in face-to-face communication is lost in emails and texts.

Any time there are teenagers at a family gathering, they are, for the most part, non-communicative. It’s as if they are lost in space, and unless you accost them directly by standing in front of them and peppering them with questions, they can be completely removed from the room. On the other side of that coin, however, is FaceTime and Zoom and a half a dozen other face-to-face software programs. Wow, what a difference that can make toalonely grandfather staying in some remote part of the world without his family.

We’re already seeing the use of nano particles and chips implanted in our pets to identify them and nano healing delivery systems, space travel, driverless cars, and talk of a colony on Mars. Will my grandkids enjoy the amazing products of science and engineering in a Brave New World of wonder and beauty, or will they be subjected to the continuation of the tribal mentality that is currently sweeping the world?

Will we eventually eliminate prejudice? Will we ever control our greed enough for them to know world peace for even a decade or two? Will we ever embrace a philosophy that cares enough for our fellow man to ensure that we can all have a decent life?

I’m hoping that we find new antibiotics through the discovery of the benefits of microbes, that we continue to make discoveries in mental health, cancer and heart disease, and that we restore our overall commitment to education and the arts in this country.

The good news is that I’ll be a memory. The rest of the news is, while I’m here, I’m going to do everything that I can to make sure that every one of these good things at least has a chance to become reality. Purpose Driven Lives…learn those words. Let’s focus on making things better.

Let me be the first to admit that I have an obsession. It’s not a secret obsession,
its trap doors and stealthy rooms, and sliding panels. It all started when I was very little.
My dad’s father took me into an underground tunnel that connected the servants’ quarters
to the mansion of a coal baron’s house, and from that day forward, I was hooked.

We lived with my mom’s mom, and her house, like so many houses built in the early 1900s, had accompanying sheds that were constructed at the same time, from the same materials, with the similar siding, and paint jobs. There was a tool shed by the one-acre garden, a play house that had once stored coal, and a wash house. The play house had a front door and a wooden side window. This was the place where my brother and I could, as little kids, go
hang out and play for hours at a time.

In this one story 250-squarefoot house, my 9-year-old self decided that it would be mportant to have secret compartments. The sad truth was that neither my brother nor I had anything to hide. We were incredibly transparent kids, and we felt no need to keep anything from our parents. Nevertheless, I had installed an old Pennsylvania license
plate with concealed hinges that lifted up to reveal a hiding place in the wall. In this
playhouse I also meticulously sawed through the floorboards and created a trap door that
literally went nowhere, but if I ever needed to, I could hide a strong box.

Later, my brother and I graduated from the little kid playhouse to the much bigger wash
house. This wash house had been built to accommodate the tubs and indoor clothes lines
that helped keep the laundry clean for the eight children and two adults who had lived there
when my mom was a kid. The secret in this place was the second floor. Dad helped us
build a trap door that he connected to pulleys at the top of a ladder leading to the attic.
When you pulled on the rope two times with just the exact rhythm and swing to it, the secret trap door would fall open. That was the only clandestine device in that building, and,
for that matter, it was my last secret place until I became an adult.

When my son was about 12, I had a revolving bookcase built in his room. It was like
the Young Frankenstein bookcase, but that was not enough. I also had a secret room built in
the adjacent chamber. He would invite his friends into his bedroom, turn off the lights and
disappear completely. They’d go crazy trying to find him, but he had escaped through the bookcase and was secretly tucked away in his safe room.

Move the clock ahead about 25 years, and my son showed me the secret room that he had had built under the steps for his two daughters. Yes, the tradition continues. Shortly after that I had hush hush compartments built in my apartment, and someday, I’m sure that my grandkids will be building secret places and they’ll be wondering why. It’s funny how family traditions come about and get passed on from generation to generation.

I’ve never built my own home, but if I ever had, you better believe that there would have been undisclosed staircases, rooms, bookcases that revolved, and hiding places for my grandfather’s watch, or for whatever else I could think of to hide. I’d have hollow books, special, desks with invisible doors, hollow broom sticks for hiding money, and vodka.
I’m pretty sure I’d have a safe room, too. You know, like that room where Jodie Foster hid.

So, if I disappear, don’t worry. I’m probably under the trap door connected to the coffee table.