| A Word Edgewise by Mary Joe Clendenin |
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| A Word Edgewise by Mary Joe Clendenin |
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SON AND DAUGHTER FEEL A DUTY TO EDUCATE MOTHER
It may not be apparent to the casual observer, but I'm smarter now than I was about the end of June. You see, I've had opportunity to spend a couple of days with each of my two children. It amazes me how seriously they take the task of educating mother.
I'm also flattered, pleased, humbled, honored that they would continue after all these years to see my ignorance and try to do something about it.
We went to see Melissa, her husband Jesse and son Adrian on the 4th, and my lessons began very soon after arrival. She has become quite the expert with computers, using them to enhance her teaching, as well as to keep records and to do the millions of other tasks her many involvements require. She makes pictures with a digital camera to use on her computer screen with science lessons. Many science texts have computer programs, and she uses those along with material from NASA to make 8th graders more interested in science and discovery.
My expertise soon bogs down as she goes into detail how I might use my system to more advantage--use the internet for research, send and receive documents. I asked her, "Melissa where do all of the e-mail messages I get hang out before I sit myself down and connect with the internet? Are they just floating around out there in space waiting for me? Are they buzzing around my computer connections, like flies around roadkill, waiting for the power to surge? Do they stick with AOL to go around the world bouncing from, satellite to satellite? How do they exist? What if I got all connected and ready, but they were on the back side of Earth bouncing with the kangaroos?"
I guess my questions were not very intelligent. She didn't bother to try to answer. She just gave me an exasperated look and said, "Oh, Mother, you act like it's all magic. Like you are amazed when the lights flicker." Well, isn't it magic? That's the most logical answer I can come up with.
Now, son Patrick has a laptop issued to him by his company. In a bit of eager practice he made me greeting cards for Mother's Day, my birthday, get well, keep in touch, and anything else he might have missed. He was here to see us soon after we returned from San Antonio. But since he's just begun to play with the computer, that was not the direction of his efforts to educate mother.
Patrick is a Technical Service Representative for Baker Hughes INTEQ--that means he's a rough-neck with a chemistry set in his pickup. He was just off a gas well that blew up recently. Since I know a little math and physics--make that past tense--he explained to me what mixture, the texture and weight of mud needed to prevent such mishaps. He mentioned the sounds and smells and necessity of a short reaction time needed by drilling engineers at such times. I nodded and smiled and tried to act as if I knew exactly what the viscosity of the mud had to be, because I enjoyed hearing him speak with such authority--this is the child I was afraid would never find his niche.
But Pat had more to teach me. He is into classical music. I mean he even knows how to spell the names of the great composers, can pronounce them, and can recognize their music. He listens to classical tapes while traveling from well to well. As we road in his truck while he was here he said, "Now, mother, just listen to this bit. Hear how all the violins blend in? That is typical of this composer. Isn't that nice?"
It never ceases to amaze me how different they are from each other and from their parents, and yet to see glimpses of us all in any one. (I still grieve because I can't know the third child at this age. He was the one who laughed at my original spelling and was the only one who would play Scrabble with me. A worthy opponent, too.) The remaining two say things and do things that bring them right down to the genes. In conversation about a student Melissa said, "You know the saying, the nut falls close to the roots." We always mutilated the axioms.
So, if you really want to know, I can tell you--or find out from the source--the chemical formula for mud of a specific weight, or what Chopin was thinking when he wrote a particular piece. I can even tell you how to attach a document to an e-mail. I'm smarter this month than I was last month.