Don't you hear the whistle blowin'

I have seven grandchildren, each loved for who they are and how they see their world.

Oliver, just turned 3, loves all things that move, particularly if they have engines. For the longest time it was the machinery of construction sites. He still loves them, but of late it’s boats as well.

What fun he’d have here in Patras, wandering the docks,

imagining life at sea.

He might even stumble across old Miguel Cervantes,

revered the world over for his imagination.

Oliver would beg him to tell stories,

through the lens of his world.

Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them.

When Phil was a boy he loved baseball. But one day I asked if we might read a book by a modern day Cervantes.

Every evening for a week we inhabited his world.

To this day, if you ask Phil,

he’ll tell you he still remembers.

He always thought of the sea as 'la mar' which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her. Sometimes they say bad things of her but they’re always said as though she were a woman. Some of the younger fishermen spoke of her as 'el mar' which is masculine. They spoke of her as a contestant, even an enemy. But the old man always thought of her as feminine, something that gave or withheld great favours . . .

Oliver has added trains to his long list of machines that move. Perhaps it’s because his great grandfather was a railroad man.

On a warm day this past November we went walking the tracks.

I can still hear him singing . . .

I've been working on the railroad

All the live long day

I've been working on the railroad

Just to pass the time away

Don't you hear the whistle blowin'

Rise up so early in the morn

Can't you hear the captain shoutin’

Dinah blow your horn . . .