The turtles don’t cut it anymore

My favorite story about kids and their confounded questions is the one about the little girl who's asking her distracted dad, "Daddy, what keeps the earth from falling?"

"The earth rests on the back of a turtle," he says, grinning behind his newspaper.

The little girl thinks for a moment and then asks, "What keeps that turtle from falling?"

"The turtle sits on another turtle," Dad says.

"And what keeps that turtle from falling?"

"Another turtle."

"And what about that turtle?"

And the old man loses his patience, whips the paper down and shouts, "It's turtles all the way down!"

But how was I supposed to respond when a black-history-soaked Scout asked whether, had I lived during slavery times, I would have thought slavery was "nice, or not nice"?

After stalling her with a lot of commentary about what a good question she'd asked (she already knew that), I said that it is always very difficult to know how one would feel and act at another time in history. I said I hoped I would have opposed slavery, and noisily.

She thought for a minute, and said, "I think you would have thought slavery was not nice. Because you're pretty nice."