Giving compliments is one of those skills that don't come that natural to us as adults. We like to get them of course, but giving them out takes a little practice. Turns out, kids also have to be taught how to divvy out the accolades, and it was an important lesson our grandson Cash was learning as a first grader this year. In addition, when he found out that rewards were involved in giving out a compliment, Cash found he had just the ticket to win the hearts of his teachers.

This episode is the first of our second year of Knee Deep together, and we'll be putting our toes in the water with more enticing, if not oddball stories from here and yon. We pick up this new season touching base with Sumatra Sammy, a toy surfer who we thought was lost at sea. His sojourn into the wild sparked a memory of a wild ride I had of my own, back when bathrooms were not as kid friendly as nowadays, and we sometimes paid the price.