I don’t remember hearing the exact words, “Do not steal,” but I can’t recall a time when I didn’t know that stealing was wrong. It was at the Ben Franklin on Broadway that I first gave it a thought. Not in the sense that I would have actually done it — no, I was a rule follower at heart. But I entertained the idea as I stood in front of the penny candy bins, having heard the Washington School legends who narrowly escaped justice, racing out the back door with a Laffy Taffy in tow. How would it play out if I snuck just a gold wrapped chocolate coin? Or one sleeve of Sixlets? Would I run, or casually stroll? Who was watching? Were the thoughts inside my head bubbling above me like cartooned evidence? And then I would hear my grandma speaking to the smocked clerk like she was her best friend — because that’s the way Grandma Elsie spoke, in the eternal familiar — and I shook the fantasy from my brain, checking my hands and pockets at the same time to insure they hadn’t betrayed me. Empty of transgression, I would race to my grandma’s side and join in the laughter.

She didn’t have to say the words for me to know that this was not a corporation. This was not big business, nor high finance. These were our friends. If I stole something, it would have been directly from the pocket of the blonde woman who sat in the elevated seat by the back door, the woman my grandma greeted with upreached hands and elevated joy.

Of course my grandma let me pick out some candy. Of course she paid for it. Of course we ate it all before returning to the farm. Of course we threw away the empty sack evidence, laughing when grandpa asked what we were up to.

I used to bring my first book, “I am amazed,” to school districts around the country. I asked students to write down amazing things about their classmates. They “Elsied” it without hesitation. So easily they saw the good in others. Maybe we still could do that. With each other. Daily. We could give, instead of take. We could build, instead of tearing down.

Maybe it was easier then. No one actually saw the content bubbles that were going on inside our heads. But we see them now. So easily we display them right here. Some even proudly, as they mock, hurt and intentionally try to destroy. I guess I’m lucky, as I write each day, I can still see Grandma Elsie at the end of the aisle, and I know exactly what to do.