Please pass the Neil Some friends are moving back to town and a few things have changed. Their daughter is now a teenager. I used to babysit her starting when she was 5. FIVE. And now she's almost 15. That's just insane. As kids do, she gave me some pretty good laughs. One day we were sitting at the kitchen table doing homework or something. I asked her if she'd like to listen to some music while we sat there. Sure, she says. So I asked her what she'd like to listen to. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting her to say. She was 5 or 6, after all. "Neil Diamond." "Marie. You do not. You don't even know who Neil Diamond is." "Uh huh!" And then she starts belting out "Sweet Caroline." "OK. So you do know who he is." A little baffled, I went to the stereo, found some Neil Diamond and loaded it up. She sang all the songs on the CD. I kinda just stared and wondered who this kid was. I didn't know half those songs. I still don't, in fact. Her parents took her to a Neil Diamond concert a couple years after that and she wowed the people around them by singing all the songs. I wonder if she'll be embarrassed by this now. She IS a teenager after all.