holes in our education

Yesterday I had a long walk with my friend Lily.  Between her new job, and my busy weekends, we hadn't seen each other for months and months, so we had a lot of catching up to do.

Lily's been enjoying the Ken Burns series "The Roosevelts."  While she was telling me all about it, I would interject perfectly appropriate clarifying questions. Such as:

"He was the uncle, right?  The one the teddy bear is named after?"

"She had the horsey face but did awesome things?"

"He was the one with polio?"

It was the polio question that broke her.  "Nicole!  Stop it!  You're shocking me.  I am not used to knowing more than you do."  And then she laughed and said, with mock seriousness, "I think you've spent too much time with the ancients."

See, the Enlightenment just really got me down, what with all the intellectual masturbation and bickering about what it means to be a Christian, so, yes, there are very large holes in my education, all of US history being one.

Okay.  I'm exaggerating.  But only a little.

Lily caught me up on the series, but finally said, "I think you need to watch 'The Roosevelts' yourself."

"Yes.  I do."

And then I remembered watching a documentary (this one not a Ken Burns) with my son Eli, when he was about ten.  A photo of some old fella appeared on the screen, and Eli said, "Oh!  That's Branch Rickey."

"Who's he?!"

Eli sighed, and with a resigned gesture, clicked pause on the remote, and then, sadly, as if hardly believing he had to say it out loud: "He signed Jackie Robinson, Mom."

"How do you know that?!"

"Everyone knows that!!!"

Everyone who wasn't dozing during Burns' baseball documentary, which I think Eli had memorized.  At least I learned all the songs.  

Toward the end of our walk, Lily was telling me somesuch, and mentioned LBJ, but interrupted herself to lean in and say, "That's Lyndon Baines...."

"I know who LBJ is!"

Well.  More or less.