When you’re a kid, the one thing you want to be is older. This is the case for most people until you wake up one day and wish you were younger.

Youth is a long line of mile markers, each of which you are constantly try to reach.

In the 1960s, the youth of Ashdown, Arkansas, had few things to get excited about. A one-income family focused on housing and groceries. Fun things were a luxury.

Six Flags Over Texas is an amusement park in the Dallas area. It’s now quite large and has other parks in the country. At the time it was relatively small. But it was huge to us.

The excitement generated by the announcement that as a family we were going, our church group was headed there, or our scout troop was making the trek, caused chatter for the entire time leading up to departure.

But you learn that excitement needs to be tempered with reasonable expectation.

My dad was six feet tall. My mom is 4’11”. Until I was about 13, I was short. I often wondered if I was destined to be as tall as my dad or my mom. The answer was somewhere in the middle. I grew six inches in one year and made it to 5’10”. I’ve shrunk since then.

That height wasn’t achieved until after early trips to Six Flags. So, I faced the dreaded signage that no kid wants to see when it comes to being able to board the cool rides.

“You must be at least this tall to ride this ride.”

There was little else more humiliating than stepping up to that sign, placing your back against it, and being told you were under the line.

Having to stand back and watch your friends board the Cyclone, Mini Mine Train, or other legendary park attraction, was brutal.

I wanted to be old enough to grow past that line. Eventually, that day came. But there was always the next mile marker.

In addition to being short for about half of my school years, I was also one of the youngest. My birthday fell right on the line when it came to starting school. My mom had to decide whether to let me start or to hold me for the next school year. She later told me that she felt I was ready, so she enrolled me in first grade when I was barely six. When I was coming up, there was no preschool or kindergarten. You went straight into the first grade.

Mom was right. Academically I was ready, but because of my birth date, I was always one of the last In my class to get to do certain things.

At the time in Arkansas, you could get a drivers learning permit at 14. Because my date of birth fell much later than my classmates, I had to watch them drive by while I walked to school.

Seeing them cruise down the road behind the wheel of their parents’ Ford LTD or Buick Electra felt humiliating. In reality, it wasn’t. It was just my lack of patience.

Later, I watched as others turned 16 first and got their own hunting and fishing licenses. I did both under a child’s permit.

It was the age of 18 that most of us couldn’t wait to be. Unlike today, at that time you could buy beer at that age; move out of the house, register to vote, or join the military without your parents signing for you.

All mile markers we couldn’t wait to reach.

But something happens as you hit all of those markers. There are always more.

College, marriage, children, a career, and then retirement. You speed towards each like a bullet train that can’t wait.

Those mile markers pass. And then an odd thing happens. You look up for the next mile markers, and you don’t see any.

That’s when it hits you. You missed a lot.

When I was young, I would say, “I can’t wait until I’m 14 so I can get my driver’s permit.” My grandmother would respond, “Don’t wish your life away.”

That sentence makes little sense to a person who’s focused on the next thing. But the good news is, when you reach a certain age, the next mile marker is an eternal one. The ride you take to get there is one of His forgiveness, not anything you have to achieve.

And you don’t have to be taller or older. Just patient.

 

© 2026 John Moore

John’s new book, Write of Passage: Volume 3, is available on Amazon. Write to John at TheCountryWriter.com.