Smart Kids

This week I talked to a group about Rome, the last of four talks about my trips to Italy. Afterwards a little old lady with a whispery voice asked, “How many children do you have?”

“Three”

“Do all of them have your ability in speaking?”

No, I can’t imagine Karl, David, or Martha standing up before a group like I do every week. But I didn’t plan to be a travel lecturer either. I am a writer. Friends urge me to write a book of stories I tell at breakfast and lunch. I’ve written some of them on this blog and told some to a group at the retirement home where I live. Voila! I am a public speaker.

The old lady’s question got me to thinking about my children and their talents and the whole complex question of heredity, talent, intelligence, and what difference does it make anyway?.

My writing ability is a gift, one which I have enhanced by study, formal and informal, college courses in creative writing, play writing – even a short course in London – and reading, reading, reading. Still, it is a gift. Some people have it; some don’t. My grandson can solve complex math problems but struggles to write a simple paragraph. I use a calculator and still can’t balance my checkbook.

All my kids are smart. Their father was highly intelligent, too. He was smart enough to deceive me for 30 years. He was a cad. Intelligence is not equivalent to virtue.

Among my dearest friends in New Mexico was a woman who had to drop out of school after the eighth grade and worked as a scullery maid in a British mansion. Her husband was forced to leave school after the third grade and was hired out as a ten-year-old to a sheep herder on a New Mexico ranch. Two of the kindest, most generous people I’ve ever known. They were also great fun, always delightful companions.

For friends and companions, forget about talent or intelligence. Give me friends with big hearts.