MyThreeDaughters

Bet you don’t think I can connect those three, in 400 words or less.
Driving to a birthday party yesterday morning with the three girls.
Fontaine mentions hearing her favorite song, “Sweet Home Alabama,” coming out of someone’s car.
Before I had chance to think, “Man, we have to move north of the Mason-Dixon line AND SOON,” Rosebud hit us with:
“I wish I lived in Sweet Home Alabama.”
(And, hey, who doesn’t want to live in a place where the skies are so blue, tell me true.)
Fontaine says, “Sweet Home Alabama” isn’t a place. Alabama is a state, do you know what a state is?
“No,” Rosebud says, what is a state?
OK, Fontaine continues, how about the United States, it’s a country, do you know what a country is?
“No.”
OK, how about a continent, like North America, the United States is part of North America…do you know what that is?
“No.”
This is now reminding me of a reporter I used to work with at the newspaper who maintained that an interview could be conducted merely by repeatedly asking the question, “Why is that?,” and a second reporter who said that while that might be true, the first reporter would eventually get his ass kicked. (I’m only at 208 words, so a little aside won’t hurt.)
OKaaaaaaay, Fontaine plods on, North America is a continent, and continents are big, giant chunks of land, and there are seven of them on the world. The world is where we live. Do you know — here it comes, Alabama — what the UNIVERSE is?
“No.”
I don’t know how far into outer space this explanation can go, so I blurt out: “How about God, do you know what GOD is?”
“YES!” Rosebud calls out with delight at finally knowing something. I know a song about God, and she starts singing.
Luckily, it wasn’t “Sweet Home Alabama.”
(313 words: God, The Universe, Lynard Skynard)