“That evening, sitting at the bar with the MTV winners, I began talking about a record I had as a kid.  It was called “Bozo Under the Sea.”  Bozo met all kinds of fish who could talk, and occasionally we boys and girls had to turn a page in the book “or poor old “Bozo is going to drown.”

I did the high-pitched shivery voices of the jellyfish for John and Chuck, who chuckled politely in their miserable way.  The setting sun bruised the sky, and it occurred to me that diving these reefs was like shaking hands and saying “howdy” to the ten-year-old I had once been.  He’s an enthusiastic little guy, constantly astounded by the world.  The kid, I know, considers me a bit of a Bozo on land as well as under the sea.  I don’t get to talk to him much anymore.

         “How much longer you going to stay?”  John asked.

         “A  while,”  I said.

         “Why?”

         I didn’t tell him that I liked diving with an imaginary ten-year-old.  I didn’t tell him that after twenty years, I still needed to be astonished.”

                               —-Tim Cahill, Pass The Butterworms