I retired from teaching 13 years ago last month, but not from learning. I learn something new every day. I learned that those 13 years went by in a flash, just like the 64 years that came before them.
Some of the things I learn are important. Just recently, I learned that tennis balls are the cause of injuries among tennis players. Now I was a pretty good tennis player in my day and, luckily, I never had an injury, but apparently at the professional level the little yellow spheres are a danger to life and limb, or at least to limb. It’s true I wouldn’t want to get hit by a world-class player’s 150 miles per hour serve, but who knew the length of the fuzz on the ball would cause an injury.
Marketa Vondrousova, a Wimbledon champion from Czechia, recently dropped out of a tournament due to severe arm pain which she suggested was caused by the heaviness of the balls aggravated over the course of the season. She suggested that the length of the fuzz was more than allowed by the International Tennis Federation rules. Who knew they measured the fuzz on the ball? I learn something new every day.
I learned that a major fast-food chain’s burger is smaller than it appears in menu photos. There’s a surprise! You probably heard that another chain’s foot-long sub sandwich was not a foot long, but I’ll bet my lunch that you didn’t know a burrito is not a sandwich. You’ll probably lose sleep over that tonight, but you learned something new today, didn’t you?
I learned that you can balance two forks on a single toothpick. It has to do with the center of gravity or the laws of physics or something like that, subjects I know little about so don’t ask me to explain. That’s something I didn’t know … and didn’t think I needed to. I have not tried it, so I’ll take the experts’ word for it.
Here is something I just learned, and I am not too pleased about. The young crowd is dining in restaurants earlier and earlier. According to an article in a Boston newspaper, dining reservations are all but impossible to get after 4:00 pm. Of course, the restaurants love this, but dining early was once the purview of the senior set. Not anymore! First these millennials, or alphabet generations or whatever they are called, take away pickleball and now the early-bird special. That’s why we boomers can’t have nice things.
Here’s something you may be glad you learned here. Kissing someone for one minute burns 26 calories. Now there’s a weight-loss plan worth exploring.
I learned that Albert Einstein could never remember his phone number or to wear socks. They say the brain is 80% water. Do you think he had a leak? Since retirement, I can’t remember what day it is. Glad to know I’m in the same leaky boat as Einstein.
The missus, who reads my column regularly, came across a story about a specialty school in Japan that has a correspondence course that teaches people how to be funny. She suggested I consider enrolling. Wait! What? So, now she tells me!
I learn something new every day.
Editor’s note: Mattapoisett resident Dick Morgado is an artist and retired newspaper columnist whose musings are, after some years, back in The Wanderer under the subtitle “Thoughts on ….” Morgado’s opinions have also appeared for many years in daily newspapers around Boston.
Thoughts on…
By Dick Morgado