JUNE 13, 2026 – Recently, my daily walk took me past a school playground on the opposite side of the street. It was recess time, and on the near side of the playground a group of fifth or sixth grade boys and girls were kicking a ball around. I’d say “soccer” ball, except it looked too forlorn to be a serious sporting ball. Besides, it was colored a faded rust, not white or white and black, as are most soccer balls. No, this ball looked more like a tired version of the ones that we kicked around on the playground “back in the day.” Before I’d given any further thought to the ball in question, however, it surprised me. It jumped the chain link fence around the perimeter of the playground. Not only that. It shot past the curb and bounced over to my side of the street. The ball mimicked the frantic movement of a prison escapee in determined pursuit of freedom.
At first I obliged it, breaking pace and direction to meet the ball on my side of the street, as if I were a rescuer. The kids, I noticed, lined up on their side of the fence to watch my actions and consider their options. In fact, I wasn’t the ball’s savior but its captor. After looking both ways to ensure that my mission didn’t turn into the need for a 9-1-1 call, I dribbled the ball gently across the street. In an earlier stage in life, I would’ve given such a fugitive a swift kick to send it back to its confines, but age saps confidence in formerly routine abilities. Under present circumstances, I took the sure-bet option: At the curb on the kids’ side of the street, I picked up the ball and carried it three paces to the fence.
Still being a bit of a kid myself, despite my advancing age, I asked, “What will you give me for returning your ball to prison?”
“Uh . . . a dollar?” said one of the bigger kids, a girl whose countenance hinted strongly that she wasn’t buying my brand of humor.
“No,” I said. For some reason—from where, I had no idea—an image of a candy bar flashed into my head; specifically, a “$100,000” brand candy bar. I can’t remember the last time I’d thought about a “100 Grand” candy bar unless it was Halloween 1997. Surely the reader has a mind far quicker than mine and instantaneously connected “$100,000” to the $1.00 that the girl had tentatively offered in response to my apparent ransom demand for the ball.
By now surely the girl was wondering why the old man didn’t simply give back the ball.
Before I could say, “candy bar,” however—the “100 Grand” brand or otherwise—another kid shouted, “Two dollars!”
“Nope,” I said tossing the ball straight up in the air—but not so impressively that I couldn’t catch it.
Just then another kid, a younger—I mean shorter—boy standing next to the second kid, said, “How about a ‘thank you’?” He uttered the words with such presence and genuine appeal, he caught me off balance. Given the influence of American capitalism on my worldview, even in jest I’d been thinking how I could leverage the circumstances to my material advantage. The girl, I realized, and her friend who’d doubled the bid price, was likewise influenced by the culture of plunder. But the third kid had gone unwittingly rogue. In the next instant I came to my senses. I knew his answer was the “right” one; the best one, the “this is how we change the world” response.
“Bingo!” I said.
* * *
The old man tossed the ball over the fence, and on behalf of his group, the wise young kid accepted the return of the escapee. As is so often the case with the truly wise, the kid was oblivious to his wisdom; to the fact that with two simple words well said, he’d schooled a guy his grandpa’s age—and renewed the old man’s faith in “kids these days.”
Subscribe to this blog and received notifications of new posts by email.
© 2026 by Eric Nilsson
