He'll copy me or Jeremy or something he's seen on TV all the time. Today was the first time I've seen him mimic Brookie, though. He wanted to take his Captain America bear to the Waynesville Street Dance with us tonite. Before we left, though, he wanted to "take a picture" of his bear on the front porch. He does this with the old flip phone his Nana gave him to play with. To get a good smile out of "Cap 'Merica," Jones, out of nowhere, pulled a trick out of photographer Brooke's bag.
"Don't laugh," Jones teased his bear. "Don't laugh!"
It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen - and a great reminder that I need to be on my best behavior anytime I'm around one Mr. Robert Jones.
Back when I wrote for a newspaper in Atlanta, a book came out. This book was of particular interest to those of us in the Atlanta area, because it featured the "Girlhood Writings of Margaret Mitchell." Before Scarlett it was called, and in preparation for my Gwinnett Daily Post article about the book, I both visited the Margaret Mitchell House in Midtown and read the fascinating trove I was sent by the publisher, all of it like treasures left behind by an Atlanta native whose seminal novel (Gone with the Wind) is, for better or worse, synonymous with both the city and the South.
My thoughts on the experience of reading Gone with the Wind could fill a million blogs; because this isn't a blog about the books I've read, I'll express my opinion more succinctly: Scarlet O'Hara was a despicable, opportunistic narcissist, whose sins in the book are FAR more egregious than even those that made it into the movie. Why in this WORLD the South decided to adopt her as its quintessential heroine is beyond me, for there is NOTHING - read my lips - NOTHING heroic about her. The South, instead, would do well to read more of Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Welty if it's in such desperate need of finding a female to carry the Confederate cloak with all of the grace and charm Dixie darlings are known for.
But I digress.
As usual.
Anyway, for as much as I HATED Gone with the Wind - oh, and Margaret Mitchell could EASILY have cut about 500 pages from her epic tome had her editor been worth a darn (Gone with the Wind, like the musical Rent, always elicits a more passionate response from me than I intend it to) - I LOVED "Before Scarlett." I was COMPLETELY astounded by Mitchell's literary propensity, which was evident at such a very early age. It was clear to anyone who read her sweet little stories or the scripts she penned for those in her Piedmont Park neighborhood plays that she was something special.
I remember that feeling very vividly.
"Wow. Maybe she IS born with it."
I think about that feeling a lot when I see Jones. I'm not saying he's going to grow up and write a book that I'll hate about a pathologically despicable woman (he'd BETTER not), but I DO feel like, maybe, he's got some sort of innate theatrical talent.
I know; I know. Bias and all that. But I've taught a lot of kids a lot of theatre, and I can't really remember seeing one that could come up with the sort of stuff that Jones does. Who knows? In fact, I hesitate to even write this, because I don't want it to come across as bragging or as pigeon-holing him into something that he may not want anything to do with.
But I often wonder what sort of Dionysian gene he may have floating around in that lanky little frame of his.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he's just a weirdo. Maybe he's just more animated than most in demonstrating that bent towards mimesis that Aristotle rightly claims is among the first impulses of all children.
Or maybe they'll someday be a documentary made subtitled "The Childhood Performances of Jones Pressley."
I've thought about this for a LONG time - like since he started coming up with dialogue between his action figures when he was two and could barely string together three distinguishable words. Or every time he watches his shadow as he performs certain movements. But yesterday, I was sitting in my office - on one of my "blog binges" - and heard him reciting entire scenes from "Toy Story," playing every part with perfect timing and inflection.
Like I said, maybe he does or maybe he doesn't, and maybe he will or maybe he won't ever do anything with whatever talent he may or may not have, but in case he does do the big things I think he may be capable of, his Theatre Historian mama promises to be prepared for the documentarian.
Jones has always been a mimic.
