Knowledge

Knowledge

     When I was seven, I thought that all grownups must know everything there was to know. The evidence was all around me. If I asked my mother a question, she always knew the answer. My second grade teacher could explain wondrous things...the meaning of strange new words, how to add and subtract. Even that awesome endeavor, long division, became clear under her instruction. All I needed was to ask the question of an adult, and the whole world was there for me to learn. By the time I was a grownup, I too, would know everything.

     Mysteries unimaginable to my young mind were commonplace to adults. Once I overheard a story told by some older boys on the school bus, and they thought it so wonderfully funny that I couldn't help laughing, even though its meaning was a mystery to me. That evening I told it to my mother and my aunt during a pause in their conversation, certain that they would understand, and be as amused as the boys had been. Their horrified expressions were not what I had expected and their angry quizzing told me that one should not pretend to understand things when one does not.

     I always looked forward to my Children's Book-of-the-Month, a present from my mother. In May it was a biography of the boyhood of General George Custer. He was such a heroic figure as a grownup, and the book had captured my attention, mentioning that the young Audie Custer was given a set of books for his birthday. Could I be destined for heroism like Audie Custer? The thought excited me and I wanted to discuss it with Othella, a woman of fourteen who stayed with my sister and me after school while my mother worked.

     "Do you know what Audie got for his birthday?" I asked, sure that she would know and immediately see the parallel between the young Custer and me.

     "Is that a friend of your?" she asked.

     I thought she must have momentarily forgotten, and didn't want to embarrass her or to show off by implying I knew something that she didn't.

     "No, Audie Custer," I said, confident that the added information would jog her memory.

     "Well, I don't know who that is, and I sure don't know what he got for his birthday." She began folding the clothes she had just brought in off the line, dismissing me and my question.

     This admission from an older woman surprised and slightly confused me. After a brief reflection, I realized that she was still in school herself, and although she was quite old, she was not yet a full grownup, her education was incomplete. School would soon fill that small void in her knowledge just as it was filling mine. I decided not to embarrass her into further demonstrations of her lack, and went back to my book, still content that someday I too, would know everything.

Gary Gentry

Look for "Oil Patch" at www.authorhouse.com/bookstore