Everybody needs a rock

Part 1

Everybody needs a rock.

Im sorry for the kids who dont have a rock for a friend.

Im sorry for kids who only have: Tricycles, Bicycles, Horses, Dogs, Goldfish, Three-room playhouses, Toy cars, Wind-up dragons, and things like that if they dont have a rock for a friend.

That's why Im giving them my own ten rules for finding a rock...

Not just any rock.

I mean a special rock that you find by yourself and keep as long as you
wish-- maybe forever.

If somebody says, "What's so special about that rock?" Dont even tell them.

Nobody is suppossed to know what's special about another person's rock.

All right, here are the rules:

Rule number 1

If you can, go to a mountain made out of nothing but hundred million small shiny beautiful roundish rocks.

But if you cant, any place will do.

Even an alley, even a sandy road.

Rule number 2

When you are looking at rocks, dontlet mothers or fathers or sisters or brothers or even best friends talk to you.

You should choose a rock when everything is quiet.

Dont let dogs bark at you or bess buzz at you.

But if they do, dont worry.

(The worst thing you can do is go rock hunting whe you are worried)

Rule number 3

Bend over. More. Even more.

You may have to sit on the ground with your head almost touching the earth.

You have to look a rock right in the eye.

Otherwise, dont blame me if you cant find a good one.

Rule number 4

Dont get a rock that is too big.

You'll always be sorry.

It wont fit in your hand right and it wont fit on your pocket.

A rock as big as an apple is too big.

A rock as big as a horse is much too big.

Rule number 5

Dont choose a rock that is too small.

It will only be easy to lose or a mouse may play with it, thinking it is a marble.

(Believe me, that happened to a boy in the state of Arizona)

Rule number 6

The size must be perfect.

It has to feel easy in your hand when you close your fingers over it.

It has to feel jumpy in your pocket when you run.

Some people touch a rock several times in a day.

There are arent many things thay feel as good as a rock-- if the rock is perfect.

Rule number 7

Look over the perfect color that could be a sort of pinkish gray with bits of silvery shine in it.

Some rocks that look brown are really  other colors, but, you only see them when you squint and when the sun is right.

Another way to see colors is to dip your rock in a clear mountain stream if one is passing by.

Rule number 8

The shape if the rock is up to you.

(There is a girl in Alaska who only likes flat rocks. Dont ask me why. I like them lumpy)

The thing to remember about shapes is this:

Any rock looks good with a hundred other rocks around it on a hill.

But if your rock is going to be special, it should look good by itself in the bathtub.

Rule number 9

Always sniff a rock.

Rocks have their own smell.

Some kids can tell by sniffing whether a rock came from the middle of the earth or from an ocean or from a mountain where wind and sun touched it every day for a million years.

Youll find out that grown-ups cant tell these things.

Too bad for them.

They just cant smell as well as kids can.

Rule number 10

Dont ask anybody to help you choose.

Ive seen a lizard pick one rock out of a dessert full of rocks and go sit there alone.

Ive seen a snail pass up twenty rocks and spend all day getting to the one it wanted.

You have to make up your mind tou know.