Jason

Jason had always been full of good ideas.

When we visited one another as kids we were never bored. If we were we must have found something to cure us of it quickly.

I remember going to Jason's house in kindergarten and first grade and letting our imaginations run wild. We built magnificent forts out of fallen trees in the woods in the backyard. We hosted a radio show while seated at the huge electronic keyboard he had in his living room.

One day we went on a hunt for diamonds in his backyard. We found them alright. The diamonds were scattered under a giant evergreen. We collected as many as we could and showed his mom who must have laid into us for picking up so much broken glass with our fingers. That's winning!

Among all these adventures the best part was if we needed an intermission we just jumped on the tire swing or played MathBlaster.

We came up with grand plans at my house, too. We piled cardboard boxes in my backyard convinced we could make a spaceship that would leave orbit. If only we had had some sort of propellant that day...

Yes, we had many brilliant ideas that spawned more just like them. So it was particularly disappointing for me to hear how Jason and Chris had spent a good part of a Saturday in high school.

They washed the road.

Chris and Jason got a few buckets together along with some sponges and soap. They began to wash the road in front of Jason's driveway.

You can call it silly to pick up pieces of glass and call it diamonds. You can say it is a waste of time to build a fort in the woods when there is only two of you and you are not attacking one another. You cannot deny though that those experiences allow the imagination to expand.

It is hard to imagine how spending precious time washing the asphalt that will always become dirty again can lead one to greater heights. It may very well inspire someone to wash their driveway just for kicks, but that is probably as far as it will go.

It was certainly a public service. They were like Boy Scouts without a chaperone.

Imagine if Steve Jobs had backtracked and re-invented the cassette player instead of the iPod.

Imagine if your best friend left your radio show at the keyboard to wash the road. Well, how would you feel?