It’s fair to say that I was somewhat grumpier than usual the other night, but not without good cause in the form of a last minute flight delay at Chicago’s bustling O’Hare International Airport.

As airports go, O’Hare definitely runs to the posh end of the spectrum. At this point in my life, however, I’m disinclined to view overnight camping in any airport as simply one more exciting aspect of modern travel.

Been there, done that, got the sciatica to prove it.

So when they announced the boarding call, I queued up for the last flight home to Maine. While inching down the cramped center aisle, I did a bit of mental arithmetic and discovered that, assuming the remainder of my trip went smoothly (a dubious assumption at best), adding an extra hour for the time zone change, a 21-minute wait for my checked luggage in P-town and a 15-minute cab ride home, I could expect to be unlocking my front door at about the same time the werewolves were changing back into their street clothes and calling it a night. Ahhhh OOoooo, where’s Warren Zevon when we really need him?

Arriving at my assigned seat, I folded myself in, mashed my knees against the seat back in front of me and was in the process of searching for my seatbelt when I noticed the young man (age nine? ten?) seated next to me. Of particular interesting was the fact that he had none of the standard accoutrement (ear buds/tiny digital gadgets) of his generation, while he did carry a sketchpad and several pencils.

Let’s face it folks. Other than “professionals” one rarely encounters anyone over the age of four who will admit to having an interest in drawing, much less advertise the fact by carrying around a sketchpad. Once airborne I glanced over and watched as my young companion proceeded to create a whole new species of cubist/reptilian creatures using the simplest available technology: paper, a pencil and pure, unadulterated imagination.

Did I just say “unadulterated”? Well why not? After all, “adulterated” is as good a word as any for the heartbreaking process by which the bright, spontaneous creativity so universally present in early childhood is systematically undermined by — you guessed it — adults!

Virtually all children are natural born artists. Give any batch of 3-year-olds some crayons and paper and ask them to draw something, anything, a gorilla and space ship, the inside of a cloud, whatever pops into your head. Then step back and watch.

Within seconds those tykes will be madly scribbling away, covering page after page with brightly colored lines, dots, splotches and squiggles. As the images begin to take shape, note the wild abandon, elemental boldness and fearless self-confidence exhibited by our budding Rembrandts.

Does anybody really care that these pictures aren’t destined to be hanging in the Louvre? Of course not, that’s the whole point. The art of 3-year-olds was the ultimate abstract expressionism before anybody ever thought to call it abstract expressionism.

So here’s the heartbreaking part. A few short years later, ask those very same kids, now nine or ten years old to draw a gorilla. You’ll generally get one three responses:

A.) I can’t draw.

B.) I can’t draw gorillas.

C.) A stylized image of a gorilla somebody “taught them” to draw.

What happened to that fountain of creative expression that was bubbling out of these kids just a few years earlier?

I’ll tell you what happened. It got “adulterated” out of ‘em. Which, simply means that some “adult,” or more likely a series of adults, told them they were doing it wrong. Their gorilla, spaceship, cloud etc. didn’t look “right” or “good enough” or (Heaven forbid) “as good as Billy’s.”

Thus chastened (or deeply humiliated and profoundly embarrassed) the child packs up the crayons and paper for good, or at least for the next 70 years or so. Occasionally, after a lifetime of: “I can’t draw, the former little kid, now octogenarian, slips in the shower, fractures a hip and gets laid up for a few weeks.

At this point someone, perhaps a healthcare worker suggests, “Maybe you ought to take up art.”

Amazingly enough, with brush in hand the lost artistic enthusiasm of the early years is often rekindled in the later ones. It’s just sad that a whole lifetime slipped by in between.

Perhaps, this story, of which I’ve heard numerous versions over the years, says it best. A toddler drawing a picture is approached by an adult.

Adult: “What’s that you’re drawing?”

Toddler: “A picture of God.”

Adult: “But, honey nobody knows what God looks like.”

Toddler: “They will when I’m finished with my picture!”