My Beloved and I dined at Her favorite restaurant for Valentine's Day, Cracker Barrel. For those of you unfamiliar with the place, it attempts to replicate an old-fashioned country store setting, complete with enough weird old things on the walls to make an estate-sale addict die of envy. Snow-shoes, deer heads, faded sepia-tone photographs, vintage ads, etc.

On the wall over our table were several framed front covers from a magazine called Child Life, dating to the 1930s. We smiled at the chubby-cheeked cherubs depicted thereon, looking vaguely as if they were drawn by the same person who drew the Campbell's Soup kids, having the sort of outdoor adventures few children seem to have these days.

It was also a far cry from what is peddled to children for literary entertainment today, Teen Cosmo and the like.

I went Internet searching today and was surprised to find that Child Life Magazine kept publishing for quite a while -- lasting until just a year or two ago.

My childhood was spent exploring fields and forests, climbing trees and bounding over boulders, exploring holes in the ground and the wide open desert. I wore whatever I found in my dresser drawer -- the word "style" didn't enter my vocabulary until high school.

I would not want to be a child today.

When does it end?

As I was walking out of the grocery the other day, I saw a mother and daughter heading for their car.

The mother walked slowly, ponderously, straight forward, a small grocery bag in each hand. The daughter, who was maybe seven, skipped, scampered and ran in joyous circles.

When does it end?

When does the un-self-conscious spontaneity of childhood end? When do we stop skipping and start plodding? What would the world be like if we could delay its departure indefinitely?

Perhaps you say: Someone has to carry the groceries.