It’s the Same but Different

Some developmental psychologists consider ages three to five as the most formatively critical. This makes sense when you stop to consider that it is during these years that the sense of self as contrasted with all that is outside the self begins to evolve from the concrete to the abstract. The mind begins to develop a conservation of matter that enables the toddler to realize that something still exists even when it can’t be seen (an important thing to understand when Mom leaves the room). These were the years that Platteville, Colorado was home for me, and so the memories may take a bit longer to recount. Home still meant Mom and Dad and a parsonage next door to the church, but other entities were broadening my mental horizon.