SOMETIMES 15 MINUTES OF FAME
COMES SOONER TO SOME THAN OTHERS

"thanks grampa with the pool"

   Vacation can't stop a busy summer season

Malcolm Parry's column
Tuesday, July 10,2001
"THE VANCOUVER SUN"

    Not for me, though.  I cooked meals, blew up balls, dug worms, tightened lifejackets, paddled canoes, carried seashells, wound toys, dodged darts, poured gallons of apple juice and endlessly hid and sought with three- and five- year old grandsons Kyle and Mason Benda, who were visiting with their brain-drainee parents from California's Silicon Valley.
    The loving brothers played, embraced, spatted and -- in the younger one's case -- ran babystyle with arms extended and hands hanging loosely.  But you could see adult ways taking root.  Sometimes there was a scent of peril, such as when one stuck out a thumb -- "look grampa, I'm hitchhiking" -- and actually got a ride on a passing launch. Other times it was a hint of the calculation that can lead to fame, fulfillment or jail depending on how the cards fall.
    When the same crab kept grabbing our fish bait, we penalty-boxed him in a pail of seawater.  But his claws scared the younger fisherboy, who backed away, saying: "He's going to pinch me."
    Tick, tick, tick went the three-year-old brain until -- raising his eyebrows and smiling coyly -- he said: "Maybe he'll pinch Kyle."