News Via the Short Set

We journalists are forever pondering whether we are in tune with our readers. We have to keep abreast of what they think, or what interests them, to know what news affects them.

Last Sunday, my 5-year-old son and I went to a company beach party and took along a friend’s two sons, Josh Scott, 13, and C.J. Scott, 10, of Anaheim. What those boys had to say made me wonder whether we shouldn’t dig a little deeper to cover the news.

For example, does our Anaheim reporter know that one floor of a major hotel near Disneyland is haunted? No one seems to know why, but Josh says it’s got management pretty shaken up.

More important to me was the revelation that killer bees, somewhere out over the Pacific Ocean right now, are expected to attack the California coast by next summer. Both Josh and C.J. were slightly incredulous that my wife and I had formed no contingency plans to protect our home.

The picnic was fun. C.J. told me that it made no sense to pay $7 to rent a three-wheel cycle for an hour when you could pay $14 and cut down on time wasted returning and re-renting.

Neither boy could understand why they were the only two at the picnic drinking Suicides. That’s a concoction made by pouring some of each available soft drink into your cup and mixing it up.

The only damper on the day was the kid in the blue sweater, in another three-wheeler, with a pack of cigarettes--evidence enough for C.J. that the kid was a drug dealer who should be reported to police.

C.J. suggested a swifter form of justice. “First, I would protonize him,” The 10-year-old said. “That’s when every atom in your body goes on a separate vacation.”

The older boy went on: “Then, I would take a Freddy glove and shred what was left of him.”

A Freddy glove, such as the one worn by the creature in “Nightmare on Elm Street,” has steel claws, C.J. explained. Just desserts for a teen-age dope pusher.

The ride home did include some conversation I could relate to. The 13-year-old is sweet on a girl at his school. Her principal attribute is that she is a snob and dreams of being rich.

Josh believes this gives her more class than other girls he knows.

The 10-year-old says he wants the power to make every girl grow a mustache.

We also discussed some weighty educational issues.

Why, the boys want to know, can’t U.S. schools have electric roller coasters on their playgrounds? Josh says they have them at schools in France--and those kids aren’t doing so badly.

All of this made a tremendous impression on my 5-year-old, who later asked me just what was our plan for the killer bee attack?

It occurred to me at day’s end that I should try a little harder to stay in touch with current thinking. It also occurred to me that it might be fun to be 13 again. Or 10.