Legos

The impulse to build things runs in the family. Witness, the Lego ice cream store my nephew and his 6-year-old daughter constructed while my niece-in-law and I went for a walk.

I wish I had been given a manipulable construction toy in my childhood. A brother in my family received an Erector set one Christmas, and my father made a short wave radio from a set. The closest I ever got to something similar was a chemistry set so basic that I couldn't even make an explosion, try as I did.

How lucky The Greats are to live when gender need not determine interest in creating things requiring an engineer's mind. The granddaughter of two engineers and great-granddaughter of another may have made an ice cream store instead of a Star Wars ship, but the point is that she made it with her father.

Who knows what's next?