actual talking with a teen!

Him talking of sugar in his bag of gummy worms for lunch...

with me chiming in with Mr. Powell's advice from high school physiology class that "anything in moderation won't hurt you", just be mindful of toxicity levels...

and him following that with a conversation with his pals about recreational use of drugs...

and me voicing effect of chemicals needed by the body but not present...

and him telling me about his having ADHD and using meds for it in the past, but not now...

to me referencing the littlest girl and her chemical lacks.

That was as we were traveling from the cinema, after "Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse", him for the first time, me for the second.

Him, by the way, is the 17-year-old youngest son of four of sis-in-law Laura.

He's in town for part of his summer break and has been here since the start of June, but I only found out yesterday, when I'd texted her to check on his arrival date.

(smile!)

Hence, the short notice for me to be hanging out with Noah today.

Not that it was a bad thing - far from it! - but I've had a bit of a summer cold ever since the end of VBS.

Imagine that.

(smile!)

So what other topics emerged?

Well, he plays the saxophone, where he once played the flute, so I now know the difference in the playing of those instruments.

Specifically, the flute is voiced by blowing air over the hole; that's "over", not "into".

The sax, however, has a reed in the mouthpiece and the sound is produced by blowing air into the mouthpiece and over the reed, to make it vibrate.

So, of course I told him about oboes, the only instrument I know with reeds, and my pool-playing friend Jason Onks, who had a business repairing reeds.

That was a big surprise to the teen!

Finding that the business is still alive and doing well was a wonderful surprise to me!

(smile!)

 

He brought up stringed instruments, so we spent a few minutes going back and forth on types of items that fall into that category.

He made the mistake of saying "piano", and I corrected him.

He now knows that a piano is a member of the percussion family, as it produces sound by having little hammers strike the strings (wires) to make them vibrate.

Stringed instruments produce sound by having fingers or bows moved across their strings.

 

He has become a jazz aficionado and so I told him about an upcoming concert hosted by the Savannah Jazz Society, plus the Spiro Gyra concert next month. He was quite excited about the prospect of going to one or both of those!

 

He likes the cars that go "Vvvrrrrooooommmm!!!", too.

That meant I told him about the car that Christina's man has, the car that wins trophies at every car show it goes to, and that those car shows are not only frequent, but are frequently held for free at coffee shops.

He's hoping his brother Cole will take him to one tomorrow.

I hope so, too.

Cole is due in from Tampa late tonight, and he'll have Noah going back down to Florida with him sometime next week for a couple of weeks.

 

Given that we spent a bit over four hours together, I count our communication a success.

The experiment with him trying sushi?

Not so much.

In fact, not at all, as he never did swallow a single taste.

At least he does well at using the chopsticks.

(smile!)