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With the knowledge that we’re never too old to learn (something that you learn to be more true with each passing year), I’ve been keeping track of the things I learn and have found it useful, and fun, to review them at year-end.
For example, I learned during 2008 that leaves do not just “drop off” of trees each fall. The tree actually “ejects” them.
I learned a new law of nature. You’ve heard of “Murphy’s Law” ... Whatever can possibly go wrong, will. I discovered what I called “Duracell’s Law” ... Smoke alarm batteries will go out at 3 a.m. (Thus triggering those intermittent “beeps.”) What better time to replace a battery on the ceiling than at 3 a.m.?
I learned that if you over-pay your property taxes you don’t have to wait six months to get a refund. Didn’t feel too bad; the treasurer’s office didn’t know that either.
I learned that we’ve become a society of overstatement.
— How many crises did we have in 2008? While there were certainly problems in Washington and on Wall Street, was there, for example, really a credit “crisis”? What happened to the “gas price crisis?”
— The Fort Wayne media kept calling the 1.7 inches of snow we received on about Dec. 15 as a “snow storm.” The snow was reported to be “piling up” in the evening news and we were “digging out” the morning after. From less than two inches?
— The freezing rain and resulting ice was certainly nasty stuff to deal with the week around Christmas, canceling schools and keeping people home. But did it warrant a “Disaster Declaration” as Van Wert County called it? A tsunami is a disaster; a tornado can be; I suppose an ice storm can be as well. But not this one.
— Meanwhile, from that same weather event, one of the Fort Wayne television stations ran information about closed morning church services well into that Sunday afternoon. If that wasn’t bad enough, the information took up about 1/5th of the screen and like the Energizer bunny, kept going and going.
They eventually pulled the church information off and replaced it with other “critical” announcements. If it hadn’t been the Pittsburgh-Tennessee football showdown, I would have changed channels or turned it off. But I don’t think I needed a constant reminder that the American Legion Bingo in Auburn had been cancelled.
A major epiphany was getting the answer to the question on everyone’s mind: why do kids wear those raggedy jeans?
Our youngest son was home for the holidays, and as we lounged together one evening, I asked about the wrinkles and the worn spot on his jeans.
“Did you buy them that way?”
“Yep.”
“So, what’s so cool about that? Why do you buy them?”
He thought for a second or two. “Because old people won’t.”
I understand.
I learned several new words. My favorite one was the most recent: locus (not to be confused with those noisy late-summer bugs that seem to be beckoning the fall season).
I was editing a column and thought the writer had meant “focus,” which would have fit into the sentence and its meaning. It is, I discovered, defined as “1. place, locality.” ...but in a more specific way: “the set of all points whose location is determined by stated conditions.” Hence, it is a good word, for example, to put special emphasis on where a community’s or holiday’s central focus is or should be.
I also learned something about lost pens. It was apparently early in the year as it was first on my 2008 list of “Things I Learned.” I remember losing a favorite pen and then eventually finding it, and in the process I learned a truth about losing and finding pens. Trouble is, I don’t remember what that little insight was. All my note pad says is “lost pens.”
So perhaps the most important thing I learned in 2008 was to take better notes (something I suspect will be even more true with each passing year).
miller@news-banner.com
by MARK MILLER
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