Who knew there were so many of us?

I've mentioned before that I'm not a morning person. My brain's a little foggy this early in the day, my mind wandering like a free-range chicken, pecking at a piece of this and a bit of that and not willing to be confined to a coop of anything requiring concentration.

The dogs woke me up. I let them out, then turned on the computer and the TV to keep me company until they were ready to come back inside. As I clicked on various links to see if my favorite bloggers had posted anything new, the TV reporter talked about a group of retirees who came together because, I heard her say, "Their passion is Play-Doh."

Whaaaaaat? You mean I'm not the only one? Just this past Sunday, on my grandson's birthday, he and I were reminiscing about the things we used to do together when he was little. He mentioned the little "people" I used to make out of Play-Doh. I hadn't thought about that in years, but I used to love it when the kids played with Play-Doh. We'd spread a big plastic tablecloth on the floor, put all the supplies in the middle of it, and have some serious fun.

While the kids played with the Fun Factory and molded hamburgers and cheese wedges, I handcrafted tiny vegetables and fruits. I made inch-long bananas with minute brown spots and tiny oranges with skins pitted by rolling them around on the tablecloth. My best pieces, though, were tiny human heads.

Most of the heads were of old people. I tried once or twice to make a younger person, but by the time I'd pinched out a nose and pushed up some cheekbones, they all came out looking older. For every head I created, I made a separate set of shoulders, dressed with collar or necktie to match the head. The shoulders served as a base, and I connected the head to the base with a sturdy length of toothpick. Once everything dried for a day or two, the heads tended to wobble, but the kids didn't care. Neither did I.

When my grandson mentioned the Play-Doh people, I found myself missing the good smell of the stuff and the pleasing texture of it in my hands. I wondered if it might be fun to try it again, or maybe to move up to a more age-appropriate medium, such as polymer clay. Those thoughts were fleeting, though, and hadn't crossed my mind again from last Sunday until this morning, when the TV lady said, quite clearly, "Their passion is Play-Doh."

I'll admit that phrase excited me. Maybe I'm not just a silly old woman, I thought. There are others my age who still have fun playing with this, and they've all gotten together to support each other's efforts. Good for them!

I turned away from the computer to pay attention to the Play-Doh segment. On the TV screen, a group of older people were going into what appeared to be a university building, apparently heading toward a classroom. As I listened more intently, I began to hear words that didn't make sense in the context of what I thought I was watching. Words like "philosophy."

My initial burst of enthusiasm began to wane. It seems I was mistaken. Those distinguished-looking retirees weren't interested in molding tiny objects from brightly colored modeling dough. Oh, no. Their interests were way more sophisticated than my own.

What the TV announcer had actually said was, "Their passion is Plato."