I’m Supposed To Be Smart
The Source
I’m supposed to be smart. I have several diplomas that attest to this, and we all know that everything written on a piece of paper is truth. So that settles it… I’m smart. So how come I remain so dumb? Why are there are still so many things I don’t understand? I mean I don’t even come close to comprehending the why’s of hundreds of things…like airplanes. Explain the theory of aerodynamics to me as many times as you want and I’ll still never understand how a plane gets off the ground and stays aloft. Yes, I know, planes have big engines, but a 747 weighs 900,000 pounds. How can any amount of wind or air current keep 400 tons in the air? And I have traveled with some really heavy people. On a flight from Australia to Hawaii our plane hosted not only some pretty big Triopia and Jacksonville football players, but the entire New Zealand Blacks rugby team and eight professional wrestlers. When they came around for our meal orders these guys ordered French poodles and whole sheep. Watching them get down the aisle of the plane was an exercise in wedging. I try to avoid thinking of these things while the plane is actually in the air, but I can’t help…and I certainly don’t understand it. Another quandary: How can someone wait on you while texting? I’ve had it happen numerous times. The clerk will tally up my goods while she sends text messages. There’s no other answer than the fact that she must surely be smarter than me. I’ve never been comfortable in hospitals. They tend be full of sick people. But with the advent of tweeting and texting I live in fear of being taken to the operating room, being knocked out, then having my surgeon send text messages during the brain surgery. Why does anyone in the world really care about Charlie Sheen, Rod Blagojevich, Paris Hilton, Linsday Lohan, or where Prince William and Miss Middleton are going to honeymoon? Do I really live among people whose lives are so empty that…..? Oh well…never mind. I’m just not smart enough to understand. In all the current talk about the crisis in education, who’s talking about the responsibility of the parent? The wise and well-educated legislators of Illinois want to make it easier to fire a bad teacher. Good for them. Being a teacher myself I’ll quickly say that every incompetent teacher is a blight on the whole profession. And if a twenty-year-old college student screws around and wastes his tuition money, he’s to be blamed. But when a ten-year-old comes to school without enough sleep, without a good breakfast, and with his homework undone, who’s to blame for that? Is the governor of Wisconsin saying anything about parents who have children because they’re cute and make good Facebook pictures, then generally leave the kids to raise themselves? I wish I were smart enough to understand. When a Midwest tornado is roaring down upon your hometown, the weather sirens are bleating away, and certain doom is eminent, why does the TV weatherman give you the current temperature, the dew point, the pollen count, and the temperature a year ago today, then say, “And we’ll have the current forecast after this commercial message”? You sit there praying that that Greene Chevrolet, Stahl’s Home Furniture, and McDonalds talk quickly while you still have a roof on your toolshed. How do they get long pickles into a narrow jar? When you pull up to the drive-through speaker of a fast food restaurant and they begin by announcing, “Hello! Would you like to try our Deep-Fried Angus and Cheese wrapped in Imported Portuguese Bacon Sandwich?” are there really people who change their mind about having only a Diet Pepsi and go for the special? If there are only 25 customers in a grocery store, why do they all magically end up at the checkout counter at the same time? Who put the bop in the bop-shoo-bop? My beloved college professor, Charlie Frank, delighted in not knowing. He’d tell us, “It’s the mysteries of life that make it worth living.” He’d tell us, “It is because you want to know that you have importance.” I used to think that was an intellectual gimmick to make us want to learn, but now I think I see the wisdom in Dr. Frank’s words. Maybe it’s our not knowing that gives us life…gives us presence. The leaves in my front yard Dogwood tree are beginning to turn green. I wonder why…..