Children of All Ages Just Might Turn out to be Sages (USA, 1976)

Another 'discovery' of the mighty osurec from some time back-- behind whose shadows my shape of possessions continues to be dimly lit.

I've always been guilty of the sentimentalization of childhood and thus when I first heard the tracks from his rip I always meant to find the record to keep in collection for perpetuity.  It was not easy to locate at a reasonable price oddly enough but finally I have it here to share.  This is the second work from this group featuring singer Bobby Dorough whose laryngeal style I could see some people abhorring.  The first ST album had much more free jazz to it as opposed to the composed, radio-friendly songs in the second.  But here there's a good mix of fusion, blues, and jazzy meandering.

When I spend days with my two (three and five year old) children I see that in reality the overhyping of happy childhoods is a case of selective memory, because the negative emotions of frustration, anger, boredom, or impatience, are pretty intense, at least as much as the positive ones of excitement and joy.  In fact in any given hour my preschoolers go through such a range of emotions it's like a year-long brazilian soap opera fast-forwarded at light speed: 300,000 miles of tragedy, comedy, restless wonders and pains in the space of one primetime slot complete with the requisite commercials for toys and taco bell burritos.

What I find though most endearing in them is the absolute, timeless social naivete.  When we visit the local playground, unlike the adults who adhere to cliques and ignore all newcomers, the children make fast friends instantly and perfectly, one hi (or even dispensing with the greeting) and they are lifelong friends for the whole duration of the temporary … whilst the mothers keep to their high-school rut maintaining a fully anachronistic cool group now made up of overweight and exhausted stay at home 'soccer moms' apparently overjoyed at being able to ignore misfits like my wife and myself who unlike them are slim, educated, and artsy...

We can romanticize childhood to the ends of time but ultimately their way of living in the moment and not being aware of death, taxes, and the agony of sticking to those stratified social roles is something I could never approach without losing half my mind.

The only thing they have and I still would give anything for is not having to worry about growing old and dying.


"When children find someone soft and kind
they smile and glow and say 'hello'

When children play in their magic way
with time and space they travel anyplace

When children frown their world is upside down
don't matter right or wrong something don't belong

When children create they don't hesitate
when children create, they don't hesitate,
they don't see an end where their minds can bend
they don't see an end where their minds can be

Children of all ages, just might turn out to be sages…"