Scarecrow

By Al Horn

Have you ever felt like the scarecrow in the movie The Wizard of Oz? Feel like there many things you know just to suddenly be bombarded by a lot of new facts? Don't feel alone. If you don't know the meaning of the word atrophy, you should look it up.

The human race didn't get this far intellectually by settling for what knowledge they already had. Most all of us have a thirst for learning something knew. If you are not one of these people, you probably just put away your dictionary. Oops, if you took the time to look up atrophy, you are one of us. Denial will get you nowhere.

I don't have a fancy degree from Harvard or Yale. On the other hand, I bet I have read just as much as the lower twenty five percent of any class that ever graduated from either of these fine schools. Does that mean I'm smart? Hell yes. Does that make me an intellectual? Uh, maybe. If intelligence means learning from your mistakes, I'm certain I qualify. I've made my share of mistakes and learned from each of them. There were times I would repeat a mistake just to verify what I had learned. If you don't believe me, ask anyone of my nine ex-wives.

Just kidding. Mistakes are not the only way to learn. Observation is a really good method. Not only that, its usually less painful. I like to think I'm an observer of life. When I find myself sitting in an airport waiting for a plane, I watch the people around me. Books can tell you much about the world we live in but, for the most part, human nature must be observed. You don't have to sit in an airport to do this. Sometimes you just have to turn on a television set.

News channels keep us informed of what is currently going on in the world. If you never watched public television, you don't know what you're missing, literally. I don't watch as much as I used to. I divide some of my time between The History Channel and The Discovery Channel. If you don't have cable or satellite TV, my condolences. If these options are not open to you because of financial reasons, then I recommend investing in a cheap VCR. Any good movie rental business will have a documentary section. In some cases, just knowing what move to rent will provide you with a wealth of information.

Just recently, my wife and I rented a movie thinking we were getting a comedy we had seen advertised a few months ago. It turned out to be about the life and times of an individual living in Trinidad just prior to their independence from Great Britain. People in the Indian movie industry had filmed it. As such, many aspects of their daily lives were recorded for me to see. Had an American director gone to India with little or no knowledge of their customs or manners, I believe that much would have been lost. Our mistake proved to be rewarding in the knowledge we now possess.

Will that knowledge ever be used directly? I don't know. We have hopes of traveling to many parts of this world before we pass on. The funny thing is you don't have to go to a certain part of the globe to come in contact with its culture. When we visited the southern coast of Spain a few years ago, we encountered many diverse cultures.

We have been taking French (freedom) classes for some time. When things calm down in the world someday, we hope to visit France. We would like to sample their wines and their culture first hand. Our trip to Spain told us that to prepare for only one culture is not enough. Just as some Americans like to travel abroad, so do people of other countries. I can see it now, us in a suburban resort with expectations of meeting nothing but French speaking people, just to find the building we are in is full of Germans or Italians. To navigate the world, one must have knowledge. Ah, if I only had a brain.