The Mind of the Lost
By Bob Schwartz

Alright. I confess. There's no point in attempting to hide what is now painfully obvious. Somewhere between graduating college and my child turning six years old, I became culturally illiterate. It was reverse evolution. The older I became, the less of my childhood education I retained. If ignorance truly is bliss, I should be downright ecstatic. If time is a thief of memory, I've been royally fleeced.

My road to awareness (or my lack thereof) all began when my six-year-old son saw the movie Pocahontas. At this juncture in our relationship, we had an implicit understanding that I could field any question thrown by him and serve up the appropriate answer. However, the present queries of my son were now beginning to shatter the illusions of my level of learning. I'd overestimated my brilliance. The dawn of unenlightenment was here.

I'd forgotten most of the details as to just who was Pocahontas. I knew she was a Native American but that just set me on equal footing with my son. After my lack of response, he next shifted his inquiries to John Smith. I felt a little surge of confidence by recalling that he was a medalist in the quarter mile at the 1968 Olympics. My son informed me that he was inquiring about a John Smith who was associated with Pocahontas. My momentary feeling of certitude was abruptly erased. "Oh, that John Smith," I said unconvincingly.

Before one concludes that I have underachieved with respect to my retentive abilities, I must respond that my mind is a virtual storehouse of insignificant trivia. Any piece of educationally unredeeming information is forever committed to memory. I feared that the many years of accumulating this wealth of worthless knowledge had now pushed out more significant data - such as Pocahontas. A slow and steady erosion of my scholarly soil had now yielded diminishing crops.

The old info escaping wasn't that Joe Don Baker starred in the original Walking Tall movie. I'd retain that bit of erudite information and instead lose the knowledge as to what the heck was the Monroe Doctrine or who was Neville Chamberlain. (I could provide the entire resume for Richard Chamberlain's acting career and could state Wilt's career rebounding and scoring averages, but in the category of Chamberlains, Neville's significance was apparently a forgettable fact).

I figured Pocahontas must have been pushed out of my memory space when I was also filing away the important knowledge that Don Wert was the third baseman for the 1968 World Champion Detroit Tigers or perhaps that Buffy and Jody were the kids names on the t.v show "Family Affair". Why couldn't my son want to know about them?

If I don't re-educate myself I'm going to be uncovered. It's like the old story The Emperor Has No Clothes. My story would be more aptly titled The Father Has Limited Brains.

Maybe I'll go meet my son's teacher for second grade so I can uncover all I'll need to know to field next year's questions.

What I do know is I'm not alone. There are now reference books entitled An Incomplete Education, Don't Know Much About History, The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. A virtual adult cheat sheet for those whose store of relevant knowledge has gone bankrupt. I figure a couple of hours of studying every night and I'll stay at least a half grade ahead of him.

"I think I can. I think I can." With my refresher work I'll soon be able to quote something a little more academic than The Little Engine That Could. I'm on my way.