Time and Place: Kid’s-eye view

By TL Pixley Wednesday May 21, 2008 04:07 PM EDT

http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/freshloaf/files/2008/05/trainkidweb.jpg

Children can be counted on for many things. At 9 am on any given morning, they will be bright-eyed (at least far more so than most adults). They will respond to whatever life throws their way with absolute honesty, be it expressing unadulterated joy at riding a bright orange train in a circle or registering confusion for the stranger pointing her camera out said train’s window. Most importantly, children can be counted on to bring a light to any situation and make tarnished things shiny, make the mundane beautiful.

That was my experience at the opening of the Thomas (the tank engine NOT the train) and Friends area at Six Flags over Georgia last Saturday. Parents stood in waiting, watching their kids experience the garish colors and exaggerated cartoon faces of a sparklingly new train-inspired playground. Maybe they were all thinking the same thing I was: that life comes at you fast and if only I could remember what it was like to be blissed out on a 3-times-around-in-a-circle toy train ride...

(Photo by Tara-Lynne S. Pixley)