Isn't that what IQ tests are for?
than a highly educated bookworm, that doesn't have the common sense to step aside to let a herd of stampeding elephants pass.
I once worked for a Finite Element Engineer who was like that. He walked to work every day - rain or shine - sleeting snow or drifts up to the windows of his house - he walked to work on precisely the same path every day.
Every day that is, until the city decided to tear up the sidewalks and front yards in his area of town to put new water lines in. The first day they did that, "The Harv" was late for work. Before he finally showed up spittin' and sputterin', we all thought he got hit by a car on his way home from work the night before, as "The Harv" never missed work unless he gave a two-week advance notice.
Once those of us in the Mechanical Engineering Dept heard WHY "The Harv" was late work, all we could do was stand, open-mouthed without a word to be said amongst us.
He was late becausssss the City dug up his front yard & sidewalk, therefore his path to work. He actually called the City Dept to say "how dare you, how do you expect me to get to my job?!" Their kind reply (surely given by someone equally as stunned as we were) was:
"Mr. XXXXX" you DO have a back door to your house?" "Of COURSE, I do!" "Then we suggest you go out the back door, down that sidewalk, take the back side of your block to the traffic light by Dunkin' Donuts and surely you can find your way from there."
I promise I'm not making that up --- you just can't make this kind of stuff up. He was a mental giant as long as he was operating within his engineering field but Lord Help, if he had to do anything that was out of the norm of his daily routine. How he ever married, much less produced a child, was beyond me-----
Getting back on track a little -- I believe anyone who did not have the opportunity for any sort of education (be that graduating high school or going on to college), can increase their knowlege if they have any sort of common sense about them. All they have to do is pay attention to their surroundings and hopefully have the opportunity to get out of same, if it's unhealthy.
I suspect the truth to rkunsaw's statement is that none of us were born with what I call a two-digit IQ, we were all born with excellent faculties and, as the years have passed, seized on whatever moments we could to enhance those faculties. Because, we all seem to be prideful folks; not in an arrogant way but in a hard-working, honest and pretty ethical way, for the most part
I graduated high school with honors but with no intent of going on to college - GM was beckoning with that big fat paycheck - lollol. I spent 8 years, standing on my feet, making wiring harnesses for General Motors. There were "high school drop outs to the left of me, highly degreed people to the right of me". We were all plugging wires because it paid the most money in our Valley.
Those of us without benefit of college, had a wide open opportunity to learn from our degreed co-workers; in turn, they had the opportunity to learn some valuable "street stuff" from us that they didn't get around to while earning all those Sheepskins.
Life in general is a learning process and we all have the opportunity to gain brain power as we go down our chosen paths. This is a diverse and enjoyable group; we might not be learning all that much to get us thru life anymore but isn't interesting to see where our paths have taken each of us, as we all slide down what I call the wrong side of the Roller Coaster ride
I'm not that good at explaining things, so mehbee OG or Seabreeze might want to step in and translate in case anyone says "what in THEE H*LL did that woman just say?"
nthego:
