Children, as they progress from indecipherable babble to the ability to comprehensibly vocalize, are a veritable treasure trove of questions. Their queries run the gamut from sublime to ridiculous, comical to poignant.

I once knew a child of boundless curiosity, a little boy who grew up (much too quickly) loving the outdoors. True to his “species,” he was a questioner, a prolific one.

“Daddy,” he asked, “do fish have necks?”

Daddy cocked an eye at him.

Another time, “Daddy, where do rainbows go when it isn’t raining?”

And another, “Deers tee-tee in their scrapes? No way!”

Between questions, of course, the boy engaged in myriad other buddingoutdoorsman activities. He kicked over bait buckets and open tackle boxes, talked too much and too loudly in deer stands, and stabbed himself (and his father) with fish hooks of all sizes. He ate bags and bags of barbecue potato chips and drank enough Citrus Cooler Gatorade to float the proverbial battleship.

Regarding food, there was another question: “Daddy, are people s’posed to eat crickets?”

“No!” Daddy quickly retorted.

“Uh oh.” Along the way, the boy also got a lot of answers to questions he should have asked, but didn’t. Such as…..

“Yes, son, that knife is sharp enough to cut you.” Or, “No, it is not okay to throw rocks at that hornets’ nest.” And, “Uh uh, Grandma doesn’t want a catalpa worm on her shoulder.”

Many of the questions he did ask, though, made, in retrospect, a lot of sense.

Daddy, for example, was in the habit of naming his hunting and fishing conveyances. His favorite was Tonya Toyota, a tough little 4-wheel-drive pickup. One day, while Daddy spoke soothing and encouraging words to Tonya while coaxing her down a mountain grade during a thunderstorm, the little fellow, age 8, said, “Why do you call this truck Tonya? You know it’s a boy truck, don’t you?”

“Oh, yeah?” Daddy asked.

“Yeah,” came the reply.

“Okay, then, what do you think ‘his’ name is?”

“Earl,” said the kid, with no hesitation.

Somehow, that just seemed right. Tonya underwent an immediate sex change and Earl served father and son faithfully for the rest of his automotive life, until son became a licensed driver and learned the hard way that pickup trucks, even tough little Toyotas, are not designed to be driven upside down. Daddy’s next vehicle, by the way, was an Isuzu Rodeo named Leon.

There were, as Daddy recollects, myriad other questions posed while father and son motored through the years up or down some out-of-theway backroad or another.

“Daddy, can you turn around?”

“Why?”

“Your binoculars just ‘fell’ out the window.”

“Daddy, can you stop? The crickets ‘crawled’ out of their cage.”

“Daddy, are we there yet? How much longer?”

“Easy, easy,” Daddy always said to himself. “What you’re contemplating is illegal in every state.”

Then, one day on a crisp November morning way up in the north Georgia mountains, a rare morning when the mountains embrace you and make you a part of them, came the unsolicited cherubic query, “Ooh, Daddy, what are those?”

Daddy smiled, having himself noticed the puffy white orbs at eye level on the mountain crests.

“Clouds, buddy. We’re in the clouds.”

Silence, then, “Daddy?” “Hmm?”

“Are we in Heaven?”

There was genuine, innocent, totally believing awe in my boy’s blue eyes. Truth be told, in mine, too.

Uh, I’ll let you guess my answer.

(Email Bob Kornegay at cletus@windstream.net)