How Old Were You When?

Shirley Temple stopped believing in Santa when her mother took her to see him at a department store and he asked for her autograph. True story. She was six and barely came up to your elbow. You'd never know from her subsequent performances that she'd become a cynical disbeliever, which just shows what a damn good actress she was. It's ironic, though. Hollywood is a dream factory but it makes it harder for us to believe anything. A Book of Ages is full of similar moments of truth. Darwin, Newton, Copernicus, Luther, Einstein, Temple. Rebelieving something is very hard. Galileo tried and it didn't work.