1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7…

My mother made this crack about the number one, because when she was teaching me how to count, she thought it’d be real convenient to use a deck of cards. And it turns out it was a good mechanism, I learned how to count pretty well. Just that I didn’t learn 1. But she fixed that too somewhere down the line.

She was a real good teacher during those fundamental years. Each of us was prepared enough at home that we were able to skip a year of elementary school. And she got two of her kids into Stanford. The other, well, we don’t talk about him much.

She’s set the bar pretty high – as far as teaching goes. And it is daunting sometimes. To wonder how Sal will develop. But the fear goes away, when she reminds us that it is not one particular detail, but an overall approach and attitude. If you care about your kids development, your kid will develop fine, in general. Freakonomics had a bit on that – how just having books around lead to kids developing better skills. It wasn’t the books that did it though – it was the type of parents that have books.

Beauty and the Geek contestants surprise me sometimes – the beauties didn’t know fractions yesterday.? Or when told the answer of the largest number on a roulette wheel, made the comment “I would have never gotten that!”? Never!? Not in a million years! I dunno – was she saying that if she spent 5 minutes before the quiz trying to memorize 36, it wouldn’t have helped? Because basically, she’d need eternity to learn the fact? Or is she saying, if she had unlimited guesses as to the right answer, that she still never would have picked 36. Would have skipped it. 34, 35, 37, 38…to infinity.

Maybe her mother never taught her 36?

Or is she saying that her parents didn’t value her education enough? Well, at least she learned something – in her goodbye speech she mentioned that she learned we’re all just humans – and that the word “geek” shouldn’t even exist. That was sweet. But her geek partner (a dungeon master) probably would take leaving the word “geek” in our vernacular if she had known 36.

It was a good opportunity for her though and she got something out of it, which is the point of the show.? You can’t do much beyond giving people the opportunity. That’s my father’s approach. That he gave us opportunities and some worked out better than others. Tap dancing lessons? Piano lessons? Want to goto high school where you can ride horses?

But all that opportunity would have been less useful without the solid foundation of attention and love that my mother gave. And she’s kept on improving her game – looks like Sal will get the number 1…even with the Eddie Munster hair-do.