4
" If little else, the brain is an educational toy.The problem with possessing such an engaging toy is that other people want to play with it, too. Sometime they'd rather play with yours than theirs. Or they object if you play with yours in a different manner from the way they play with theirs. The result is, a few games out of a toy department of possibilities are universally and endlessly repeated. If you don't play some people's game, they say that you have " lost your marbles," not recognizing that, while Chinese checkers is indeed a fine pastime, a person may also play dominoes, chess, strip poker, tiddlywinks, drop-the-soap or Russian roulette with his brain. "
6
" Dabbling in the sandbox gives Rabbit a small headache. Over at the pavilion the rubber thump of Roofball and the click of checkers call to his memory, and the forgotten smell of that narrow plastic ribbon you braid bracelets and whistlechains out of and of glue and of the sweat on the handles on athletic equipment is blown down by a breeze laced with children's murmuring. He feels the truth: the thing that has left his life has left irrevocably; no search would recover it. No flight would reach it. It was here, beneath the town, in these smells and these voices, forever behind him. The fullness ends when we give Nature her ransom, when we make children for her. Then she is through with us, and we become, first inside, and then outside, junk. Flower stalks. "
― John Updike , Rabbit, Run
7
" You have games on there?" he asks." Yeah," I answer for her. " She's become a checkers fanatic. Shelley, show him how it works." While Shelley slowly taps the screen with her knuckles, Alex watches, seemingly fascinated.When the checkers screen comes up, Shelley nudges Alex's hand." You go first," he says.She shakes her head." She wants you to go first," I tell him." Cool." He taps the screen.I watch, getting all mushy inside, as this tough guy plays quietly with my big sister." Do you mind if I make a snack for her?" I say, desperate to leave the room." Nah, go ahead," he says, his concentration on the game." You don't have to let her win," I say before leaving. " She can hold her own in checkers." " Uh, thanks for the vote of confidence, but I am tryin' to win," Alex says. He has a genuine grin on his face, without trying to act cocky or cool. "
