Gretchen & The Giant Shark’s Teeth

When I was a sophomore in college I got stuck babysitting Gretchen, the daughter of a pal of mine and his wife who had to work. I had the day off from my job at Winn-Dixie, so I took one for the team and  scooped her up at their apartment at 8 AM. I was 19, Gretchen was three. How hard could it be?

I had no clue what babysitters do without a living room sofa, television, and refrigerator, so I did what millions of puzzled people do when tethered to a miniature kid: I drove to McDonald’s. I figured she’d happily play in the bounce-house until 5 PM. I would read or write and pass the time.

Bad strategy. In six minutes she was bored. Back in the car we climbed. I was a C student who vacillates between dumb ideas and good ones.  In retrospect, McDonald’s was a dumb one. Driving fifteen miles to the beach seemed a good one.

I confess I am a beach rat and always have been. Gretchen needed to become one, too. No child is too young to learn.

Anchored off the coast was a large dredge vacuuming up sand and pumping it back onshore through a long series of massive, connected tubes.  Its job was to restore the beach, which had disappeared from winter storm erosion.

This was methodical work, not glamorous, but the beach reclamation created a paradise for beachcombers. Since this was a weekday morning, Gretchen and I had the beach to ourselves.

Rather than squander the opportunity I put her to work. I spied a couple small shark’s teeth, ebony triangles glinting in the sun. I pointed them out. Our job, I said, was to walk the beach and find as many as possible. My plan was to keep them all, my hidden tax for burning a day off sheep-dogging someone else’s kid.

Gretchen and I walked slowly a mile up the coast, side by side most of the way. Shark’s teeth glistened everywhere! Never before or since have I found so many. Over 100 would be an accurate guess. Fossilized teeth sparkle in the sun, ancient gems anxious to be found.

Gretchen eventually lagged a bit behind. I glanced over my shoulder and she was nearby, her tiny hand clutching a discarded white Styrofoam cup. At the end of our walk, I proudly showed my outstretched palm, piled high with small, ebony triangles.

She showed me her cup, which held about fifteen but was nearly full. Every one of her teeth was enormous–five to ten times the size of mine. I was flabbergasted.

“How did you find those?” I asked. “They’re giant!”

She looked up and said, “That’s what I was looking for.”

I nearly fell down. We are never too old to learn, nor too young to teach. Here we’d walked, side by side for a mile or more, and at the end of the journey we had both found exactly what in life we were looking for. I was looking for small ebony triangles glistening in the sun, and found them. She was looking for giant shark’s teeth, and found them.

I learned two big lessons that day, courtesy of a three-year-old kid. One is that we find in life what we look for; and what we look for is a choice we are fully empowered to make. Look for good, see the good. Look for bad, see the bad.

The second lesson Gretchen taught me is that three-year-olds do not share. She refused to give, trade or sell even one of those monster teeth I so desperately craved.

Gretchen is grown now, last I heard living in Key West with a family of her own. I hope she still has those giant shark’s teeth. She certainly earned them.