ONE BOY IS A WHOLE BOY, TWO BOYS IS HALF A BOY, 

AND THREE BOYS IS NO BOY AT ALL

Some years ago a man told  me that he had waited sixteen years for his sons to be old enough to help him but since they had reached that age, he couldn’t find them.  We laughed at this but only because truth is always the root of the best humor.  When I was young I enjoyed my Grandpa’s company exclusively.  I went to school like everyone else and had friends but when I had free time it was always spent with Grandpa.  What he did on the farm, I did.  I went with him to Lawrence’s gas station where he would sit and talk with Bert Lawrence, and whoever else might show up, while drinking a Pepsi from a glass bottle that was kept cool in a cold water bath dispenser.  I got to choose a pop of my own and drank right along with the big guys.  But as I grew into my early teen years things began to change for me.  Though I still spent time with and helped Grandpa a great deal, my interests were expanding.  I enjoyed spending some of my free time with my friends as they became more important to me.  On one occasion Grandpa and I were heading to the field to work on a project and I asked him if I could bring a friend.  He said yes, though he didn’t seem particularly thrilled about it.  On a later occasion while intending to work on another project, I asked if I could bring a couple of friends.  Apparently, asking for one additional companion was the limit of his cooperation.  It was then that I first heard this gem, “One boy is a whole boy, two boys is half a boy, and three boys is no boy at all.”  I didn’t understand what he was saying then, but I do now.  I guess he did the math and when I asked if one friend could come he decided that half a boy was better than no boy at all.  But when asking if multiple friends could come, I shot past the point of diminishing returns right to the point of no return.  When I was with Grandpa alone, his agenda was my agenda.  When I had a friend with me, Grandpa’s agenda was only part of my agenda.  If I had taken other friends, Grandpa’s agenda would have been buried in a tidal wave of youthful exuberance.  Rather than being a help to him, we would have become a hindrance.  He would have been more productive if he hadn’t taken any of us.  I now completely understand Grandpa’s wisdom in the matter.  Henry David Thoreau said it this way, “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”  Grandpa and Thoreau must have been tutored by the same master.