As a child, when I heard the phrase “Once a man twice a child,” I visualized my parents shrinking. The causation was not clear, but the fear was real, heightened by the movie “The Incredible Shrinking Man.” It was 1957. Even at 13 years old, the movie would materialize in a dream, reinforcing the fear. As adults, we can sometimes take things for granted. Observing life from an adult perspective, but a developing mind lacks the experience to decipher innuendos.

Leaving home, developmentally, I was still a child, mentality-wise, putting myself in a man’s place, blessed with two essentials—the labor habits of my father and my mother’s love of reading. Besides Sunday School, it was my library card, which gave me access to “The Æsop for Children.” Now, Library of Congress Aesop Fables https://www.read.gov/aesop/001.html Short stories and quotes with a moral for teaching the hills and valleys of life.

But when I became a man, I had to put away childish things. 1 Corinthians 13:11: The transformation was Ecclesiastes Chapter 3.