Friday I took hubby with me to see a Golden Age of Comics exhibit at the library (1938-1950). I thought the gift was getting him in touch with his inner child. It wasn't.
The gift was for the teen-volunteer. His job this summer is to keep the exhibit clean, orderly, and answer questions to the gawking adults and find stuff for the little kids to look at so they are entertained.
Some of the most impactful adults I ever met treated me like a full-fledged person long before I was old enough to drive. They got me to value myself and to see how my ideas were important.No, I don't think drawing him out and getting him to tell me about his favorite things (and who his favorite superheroes) were.
When he told me he didn't understand how the telephone in the phonebooth would have worked in real life, I was shocked. Such a simple, or so I thought, thing.
In his lifetime, there have been precious few pay phones, fewer phonebooths, and a rotary dial phone has never existed except in pictures. The thought of not having a cell phone or needing change to make a call was completely beyond his scope.
I became a history teacher, first the payphone and then 1930s/1940s economics.
Later I explained that when my dad was a kid, his father paid 3.5 cents per comic that sold for a nickle. (My grandfather owned the town pharmacy and soda fountain.) My father and his brother were allowed to take them home, read them (provided they didn't so much as breathe on the print), and return them to the store the next day for sale. 
The fact that newspapers costing a dime was a heft investment was another idea he had a hard time fathoming.
I introduced him t The Shadow and he schooled me on the Green Lantern. My husband prefers Captain America.
All in all, it was a great gift.
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