That reminds me of another of Dad's experiments. Not that he set out to make an experiment, just that it ended up being one and he told us about the result because it was a valuable thing to know.
I've previously mentioned that Dad was moved around a lot as a child. I have a vague idea that this might have happened in Rolling Hills, back before there were many houses up there. Wherever he was located, there was a field along the route between his home and the grocery store.
As the oldest boy, he was the one sent to the grocery store to get random things. If he cut across the field it was a shorter route, so that's what he did.
Other people also cut across the field to that store. There was a meandering pathway through it. To start with he followed the path. Then with the inspiration of a kid having to do a chore and wanting to do as little as possible (not his words), he started to wonder why the trail didn't go straight. It wouldn't be as far to walk if it was straight.
Perhaps the trail was avoiding rocks or holes. He explored that idea. No. There seemed to be nothing for the trail to avoid. He considered.
Then he decided that it was better to cut straight across the field, even if he had to push through tall grass, than to meander for no particular reason. At first, there was no lingering sign that he was doing that. The grass bounced back.
Then the grass started to be pressed down, so that you could see an impression of a path, if you looked. Later, it was obvious that the grass had been tramped down.
Within a few weeks, other people had started to use his shortcut. Additional feet meant that the grass became worn quicker. The more worn the grass became, the more people would take the new path instead of the old one. As soon as both paths were worn to bare dirt, the majority of the foot traffic traveled the straight path.
Dad watched as slowly the grass in the meandering path grew and eventually hid it from view. Now people didn't even think of it as an option.
Telling the story, you could hear pride in his voice. Pride for his younger self, and pride at recognizing that this was a memory that was important enough to keep and pass down.
Showing posts with label experiment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label experiment. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Post 4.8.1.2 Dad's Memory / An Experiment in Knuckle Cracking
A Youthful Experiment.
My Dad often talked about his memory and how good it was. He stated that he remembered things back to two years old. He often complained about how his mother, sister, brother, and other relatives did not remember, or claimed not to remember, things that he remembered clearly. He resented this because he remembered many times when they had been wrong, or had done something that harmed or upset him, that they did not, themselves remember. This allowed them to keep presenting themselves as knowledgable and kind people.
Father presented his memory as a beacon into his family's past. He told us about these old transgressions that everyone else ignored or left behind so that we could see the family illuminated in his memory's light.
But I was going to talk about his experiment cracking his knuckles. The warmup paragraphs are here because it is a memory about a time when people were wrong, but it's not an unpleasant memory for him.
His family had, and still have, for the ones that are left, a standard operating procedure of Stating Things. Usually these were Things That Everyone Knows. Sometimes they were Things That I Remember. Sometimes they were aphorisms. They would state and counter-state in an ongoing competition to be The Authority In The Room. Admitting that something you had said might not be totally accurate was just not part of the game.
Dad's mind didn't work that way. He was introverted and also didn't like arguing. But most important, he though that things were either true or not, and that when a person made a statement, what counted was wether or not it was true, not how well a person could use it to chin themselves up over anyone listening.
So when his mother and her sisters all told him to stop cracking his knuckles because it would make them grow big and knobby, he decided to test it. How, you might ask, would a child do that? If he cracked his knuckles, they could all say that they would have been smaller if he hadn't, no matter what size they were. And if he used a friend as a control, they could argue that the two were just growing differently.
What he did was start only cracking the knuckles on one hand. I don't know if he ever let them know that the experiment was ongoing. He could have done it completely for his own information and satisfaction. He did it for years and there was never any difference between the knuckles of his two hands.
This proved that Those So-Called Experts On Everything were simply parroting bad information. He told us the story so that we would know that he had proved that they were wrong at so basic a level that we should always assume that they were probably wrong, especially if they were sounding particularly sure of themselves. We didn't need to argue, but it was good for us to know.
I thought that it was a clever experiment for a child. I'm still a little pleased with it by proxy.
My Dad often talked about his memory and how good it was. He stated that he remembered things back to two years old. He often complained about how his mother, sister, brother, and other relatives did not remember, or claimed not to remember, things that he remembered clearly. He resented this because he remembered many times when they had been wrong, or had done something that harmed or upset him, that they did not, themselves remember. This allowed them to keep presenting themselves as knowledgable and kind people.
Father presented his memory as a beacon into his family's past. He told us about these old transgressions that everyone else ignored or left behind so that we could see the family illuminated in his memory's light.
But I was going to talk about his experiment cracking his knuckles. The warmup paragraphs are here because it is a memory about a time when people were wrong, but it's not an unpleasant memory for him.
His family had, and still have, for the ones that are left, a standard operating procedure of Stating Things. Usually these were Things That Everyone Knows. Sometimes they were Things That I Remember. Sometimes they were aphorisms. They would state and counter-state in an ongoing competition to be The Authority In The Room. Admitting that something you had said might not be totally accurate was just not part of the game.
Dad's mind didn't work that way. He was introverted and also didn't like arguing. But most important, he though that things were either true or not, and that when a person made a statement, what counted was wether or not it was true, not how well a person could use it to chin themselves up over anyone listening.
So when his mother and her sisters all told him to stop cracking his knuckles because it would make them grow big and knobby, he decided to test it. How, you might ask, would a child do that? If he cracked his knuckles, they could all say that they would have been smaller if he hadn't, no matter what size they were. And if he used a friend as a control, they could argue that the two were just growing differently.
What he did was start only cracking the knuckles on one hand. I don't know if he ever let them know that the experiment was ongoing. He could have done it completely for his own information and satisfaction. He did it for years and there was never any difference between the knuckles of his two hands.
This proved that Those So-Called Experts On Everything were simply parroting bad information. He told us the story so that we would know that he had proved that they were wrong at so basic a level that we should always assume that they were probably wrong, especially if they were sounding particularly sure of themselves. We didn't need to argue, but it was good for us to know.
I thought that it was a clever experiment for a child. I'm still a little pleased with it by proxy.
Post 4.8.1.1 Dad's Memory / Bee's in Berry Bushes
In my last post I talked about memories my Dad had that were not unpleasant, not harrowing, and that did not cause him to simmer in bile and resentment. Most of them were about his children (us) growing up. But one was about his own childhood.
He resented having to move around as much as they did. And when I say he resented it, that was probably him resenting it as an adult, looking back. As a child, things were probably more complicated. But that's a story for another post.
For this post, the pertinent thing is that there was a mound of overgrown berry canes near one of the places that he lived as a child. I have no firm idea where that was. And he would have found when he was exploring a new neighborhood and thought of it as a nice thing that had to be appreciated while it was available.
The nice thing about it, as far as he was concerned, was that when he found it, it was swarming with bees. These weren't just honey bees: generic, small, pale, striped things. These were conglomerations of other species. Some were large and black and velvety. Some had shiny blue backs. Some were tiny.
He would catch them in an old jam jar. Turn the jar, lidless, upside down. And cover the open bottom with his hand. The bees would explore the jar as he watched, looking for a way out. They would land on his hand and tickle as they walked around.
He told us about this as part of his explanation of why there was no reason to be afraid of bees. Be respectful, yes. But don't assume that just because you see bees, they're going to come after you. If you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone.
He resented having to move around as much as they did. And when I say he resented it, that was probably him resenting it as an adult, looking back. As a child, things were probably more complicated. But that's a story for another post.
For this post, the pertinent thing is that there was a mound of overgrown berry canes near one of the places that he lived as a child. I have no firm idea where that was. And he would have found when he was exploring a new neighborhood and thought of it as a nice thing that had to be appreciated while it was available.
The nice thing about it, as far as he was concerned, was that when he found it, it was swarming with bees. These weren't just honey bees: generic, small, pale, striped things. These were conglomerations of other species. Some were large and black and velvety. Some had shiny blue backs. Some were tiny.
He would catch them in an old jam jar. Turn the jar, lidless, upside down. And cover the open bottom with his hand. The bees would explore the jar as he watched, looking for a way out. They would land on his hand and tickle as they walked around.
He told us about this as part of his explanation of why there was no reason to be afraid of bees. Be respectful, yes. But don't assume that just because you see bees, they're going to come after you. If you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone.
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