My Aha! Experience

“Pop, can you help me with my homework? I got these five last words
I can’t figure out how to use each one in a sentence. “

“Sonny, you come to the right window. Gimme your problem. It is just as
important to know where to find the right answer, as learning itself.”

“Here, five easy words, but I have to use each one in a separate sentence.

First is Tsunami, that’s one I never saw before. Two, is Tutor. Number Three is
Denial, used as a legal term. Four is Defeat, used in a specific battle. Number
Five is Cataracts, which I don’t know at all.”

“Gimme that list. Are you ready? I’m not going to repeat it twice, so pay
attention.

1. Tsunami, it comes from Latin meaning Salt. I fried the Tsunami and eggs,
and added mustard on Italian bread for flavor.

2. Tutor, from the Latin for Horn. In the Bible, Joshua blew down the walls of
Jericho because he was a Tutor. Harry James played a mean trumpet, and he was a hot Tutor. See, two for one.

3. Denial runs 4,184 miles in Africa and feeds into the Mediterranean Sea. Oh
yeah, Denial separates into the White and Blue, and they collect in Egypt.

4. Defeat. George Washington had 2,300 Patriots at the Battle of Trenton,
against the Hessians on December 26, 1776 (day after Xmas). The Americans could not afford boots for their soldiers, who had to wrap Defeat with rags for the seven-mile march to Trenton, New Jersey.

5. Last, is Cataract. The word is taken from the name of a Native-American
chief and has come to mean luxury. General Motors owns the Trade Mark for
the name Cataract, since August 18, 1902.”

I sat there stunned, just 12 years old, but I knew Pop had scammed me.

“I will never ask you anything again. Thanks for nothing.”

“Wait – you don’t trust me and my answers?”

“No, I don’t trust you or anybody else after this.”

“Pay attention – this is an important moment in your life.
It is called an Aha! Experience. You don’t trust your own father, and nobody
else, right? You have to trust and depend only on yourself, right?”

“Yeah, right, so what?”

“Sonny, tomorrow I am going to sign you up at the New York Law School.
You have learned your first critical lesson about independent research.”

“That’s was my Pop. Yeah, I went to New York Law School graduated, and
passed the Bar (not Kelly’s) on the first crack.”
Copyright © 2009
H. Bernard Wechsler