New school - old school

Last weekend my son, Griffin, pulled a Rubik's Cube out of a bag and proceeded to ask me to scramble it for him and "time him on it." Yes, I'm talking about that Rubik's Cube, the same 3-D mechanical puzzle that became popular when I was a kid. That same toy that people would spend hours trying to get the colors to line up on the same side.

I hated the Rubik's Cube when I was a kid. I don't have a mechanical mind and always thought it was a waste of time. I knew people who could solve them quickly but I wanted nothing to do with them. Now, all these years later and my 12-year-old son is intrigued by it. I, of course, obliged and Griffin "solved" it in about six minutes.

During the week, he decided the traditional "3 x 3" cube wasn't enough of a challenge so he purchased a "4 x 4" cube with 16 squares on each side instead of nine. I came home yesterday and found him and a friend watching an instructional video on YouTube showing how to solve the 4 x 4 version. I smiled and considered the irony of my son using the "new school" YouTube to learn how to solve the "old school" Rubik's Cube.

Wikipedia—one of my favorite online spots, by the way—says that more than 350 million cubes have been sold since 1980 when Ideal Toys first marketed Erno Rubik's invention. Good for them and good for him. Good for Griffin, too, as he works to solve the cube and learns the skill of solving a mechanical problem. That makes me smile too.