Christopher Robin

Dropping sticks in a river with your children is more fun than it sounds. This summer Rhonda and I, along with Jennifer and Nathan, our two adult children, went down to Lanesboro and biked on the trails. If you like riding bikes and you get along with your family I can recommend Lanesboro for a family vacation. Otherwise stay home and watch TV.

The bike trail crosses over the Root River. Stopping on the bridge, Nathan grabbed fours sticks and invited us to play a round of Pooh-sticks. This game, straight out of Winnie-the-Pooh, involves dropping the sticks on one side of the bridge and peering over the other side to see which stick floats by first. There is not much strategy needed, just the right current, but win or lose you won’t forget the moment.

I want to write a children’s book. It’s just that I am having a little trouble getting started. It’s not writer’s block, which I define as the inability to fill the blank page. It’s much bigger than that – it’s writer’s mock. I can’t decide which children’s classic I want to use as my spring board to fame and fortune.

The “Wicked,” series is being referred to as a parallel to Frank L. Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” Seems to me someone just stole Baum’s characters and used them as their own.

Frank Beddor has written “The Looking Glass Wars,” which the “Minneapolis Star Tribune” calls a reimagining of “Alice in Wonderland.” Has originality fallen out of favor? Go ask Alice - I think she’ll know.

The one that bothers me the most is “Return to the Hundred Acre Wood,” by David Benedictus. It tries to continue the story of Christopher Robin and friends. Unlike the way some childhoods end abruptly, Milne had ended that childhood story elegantly.

In the final pages of “The House at Pooh Corner,” Milne wrote how Christopher Robin tries to prepare his friend, the stuffed bear, for the unavoidable change they will experience when Christopher Robin grows up.

“Pooh, promise you won’t forget about me, ever. Not even when I’m a hundred.”

“How old shall I be then?”

“Ninety-nine.”

Pooh nodded. “I promise,” he said.

Why try and improve on a masterpiece? The copying of classics is a disturbing trend, but I may want to cash in on this plagiaristic party. So with that in mind I am toying with a couple ideas myself.

“No longer Velveteen, this rabbit is mean,” is a story of how the Velveteen Rabbit, joins up with a gang of rabbits from Watership Down. Hopping a train they travel to Pottersville where they bake Old man McGregor in a pie. The little rabbit then marries Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail. After all, why should marriage be confined to just one man and one woman?

“Green Scales,” finds Jackie Paper and Puff “The Magic Dragon,” reunited again in Honah Lee. Having lost all of his money supporting his drug habit, Jackie searches for his life-long friend along the Cherry Lane. There they join up with a band of pirates, and using the autumn mist as cover, they raid the yachts of noble kings and princes.

To try and add pages to a classic children’s book and call it your own seems wrong. But to borrow pages from the same book to make a memory with your children on a summer afternoon seems about right. Someday my children may have fun with their children dropping sticks in a river and watching them float away. Or maybe, they may borrow a page from their dad’s writing to make a memory.