Lass Words: Inquiring minds — and what will never go out of style

My 9-year-old grandson was strapped into his seat belt in the back seat of my car. We were on our way to lunch. Out of the blue, he asked me, “Grampa, how does a typewriter work?” I asked him where he heard about typewriters, and he said his teacher told his class that people used to write with them. She didn’t actually have one to show them, but apparently the kids took an intense interest in this curious historic device. 

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I did my best to explain how you pushed a key that propelled a small metal letter through an inky ribbon onto a piece of paper. Of course, that triggered a series of follow-up questions. He was particularly amazed that you could only use one sheet of paper at a time and found it difficult to comprehend how the paper could be rolled into position using a knob. The boy was entranced by the thought of such a weird-sounding machine, and when I told him I thought we still had an old one in a closet somewhere, he lit up and excitedly begged me to see it. 

This was not an unusual conversation. All of my young grandkids have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge about new things. Or old things. They absorb information like a sponge, and it only makes them desire more. You can tell that everything they learn — every new piece of data — goes into their brains and is immediately put to work to help them process some sort of perspective about their world. 

Something new every day

How wonderful and exciting it must be to learn and experience something new every day.

It makes me realize the urgency of making sure our young children know about Jesus — that they know about salvation and love and God’s will for their lives. They are so open to it now. They are asking about heaven and hell and angels and Bible stories. They are so much more reachable now than they will be in a few years, when life will be mostly about what their peers think. 

Now is the time to explain that, unlike typewriters, encyclopedias, phone booths and road maps, faith in Jesus Christ will never go out of style.

EDITOR’S NOTE — Ken Lass is a retired Birmingham television news and sports anchor and an award-winning columnist for numerous publications and websites.