666

I recently took my 4-year-old grandson, Stephon, to play miniature golf. He seemed unconcerned about the various twists and turns and obstacles that were par for the course.

With a little coaching, Stephon was soon putting his way past the windmill and down the fairway toward a hole-in-30.

By the fourth hole, the backlog of golfers behind us was rapidly growing with each additional stroke. It soon became necessary to institute a new rule: Each golfer was permitted a maximum of six strokes per hole.

Stephon seemed just as unconcerned about this new rule as he was about the course itself. He continue to putt this way and that way until the ball rolled into the hole. Then he would look up at me and ask, "How many?"

"Six."

After a particularly challenging hole that had Stephon chasing the ball over several fairways and that had me smiling apologetically at the bored competitors behind us, I was forced to picked up Stephon's ball and shoo him to the next hole as I told him, "Six."

To my amazement, Stephon even managed to surpass the magic number of six on the final hole which usually only requires one shot. His ball ricocheted, bounced, sailed, and hopped past the wide opening that would put an end to the game.

Undeterred, Stephon finally hit the mark. "Six," he said.

When I saw the smile of satisfaction on his face, and when he showed no disappointment at the announcement that he did not win the game, I thought that there could be no more innocent number than 666.