Things my parents never told me
The television sometimes serves up an amazing smorgasbord of factoids: only 10% of adults are able to properly use the hula-hoop. When you perform a slapshot, you actually hit the ice, not the puck. The bobsled race is a game of a few hundredths of a second. Mel Gibson is a reasonably good actor (the last is an opinion, not a factoid).
Nevertheless, most information is given to us in very small doses. No sitting down for a three hour lecture, when three minutes is supersufficient. What were the university senate thinking? If the class time had been kept to the necessary, I could have had years more to party my way to (fill in the blanks. Please!)
Tonight, we ate fish. That has become so rare that it bears mention. From a generation ago, where at least one major meal per week involved something with fins, we’ve arrived at a situation where the entire output of the fishing industry is completely irrelevant to our nutritional culture. Red Lobster, come back! One of my children has never been to visit. One wouldn’t. One remembers the toy box.
