There used to be a TV show called "High Chaparral" and it was a western similar to Bonanza. I was never really sure what a chaparral was although I assumed it was a desert or mesa type land formation. The show always featured desert, rocks, lizards and stuff. There was always some Apache type Indian hiding behind a rock or a cactus. This is another show I am embarrass to admit to watching. I would quickly change to Rockford Files if someone came in. I did the same thing with Little House on the Prairie. This was before TV controllers (clickers) as we called them back then. They literally clicked when you pushed the buttons.
Anyway, I asked my brother, by far the smartest person I knew about the chaparral. I am not sure he was a genius but between me and Bobby and Brian, he was a clear winner. So I asked him. Hey, what exactly is a chaparral anyway? Without looking up from his physics book on space and time, he said, it is a race car. I quickly scanned my memory of the tv show and not only did they not have a car, there was no race tracks and it may have been before they even trains were invented. At that moment I remembered the Don McLean song, "bye bye miss american pie" with the line "drove my chevy (a car) to the Levee but the Levee was dry". I thought a levee was a rock formation like a mesa but there is a connection of a car and chaparral blinking through my brain. So I looked up the definition to levee and it said "dyke" and Mary Poppins just came out with Dick Van Dyke covered in soot so basically I gave up.
My brother noticed that I was stuck in some other world and he asked me if I was ok. I said, probably not but there is this tv show similar to Bonaza called the High Chaparral and they only have Mexicans, Indians, dirty white people and horses, no cars. He made a face and said, there is a race car called the Chaparral and they race Formula 1 and shit like that. I should have know it had something to do with sports. I tried to explain the dyke thing to him but he was off calculating batting averages again. "Matt, did you know that in 1966 Carl Yastrzemski hit twelve less home runs but his average was 43 points higher? I said, I still do not care and did you know his name has four consonants in a row and that is a little creepy? He said something about a green monster and I had to leave the room.
At work the other day someone asked me if I knew why the centrifuge was not working. I said," the damn thing is broke" which seems like a perfectly good answer. As they walked away down the hall, I said to myself, you cannot know everything!
Anyway, I asked my brother, by far the smartest person I knew about the chaparral. I am not sure he was a genius but between me and Bobby and Brian, he was a clear winner. So I asked him. Hey, what exactly is a chaparral anyway? Without looking up from his physics book on space and time, he said, it is a race car. I quickly scanned my memory of the tv show and not only did they not have a car, there was no race tracks and it may have been before they even trains were invented. At that moment I remembered the Don McLean song, "bye bye miss american pie" with the line "drove my chevy (a car) to the Levee but the Levee was dry". I thought a levee was a rock formation like a mesa but there is a connection of a car and chaparral blinking through my brain. So I looked up the definition to levee and it said "dyke" and Mary Poppins just came out with Dick Van Dyke covered in soot so basically I gave up.
My brother noticed that I was stuck in some other world and he asked me if I was ok. I said, probably not but there is this tv show similar to Bonaza called the High Chaparral and they only have Mexicans, Indians, dirty white people and horses, no cars. He made a face and said, there is a race car called the Chaparral and they race Formula 1 and shit like that. I should have know it had something to do with sports. I tried to explain the dyke thing to him but he was off calculating batting averages again. "Matt, did you know that in 1966 Carl Yastrzemski hit twelve less home runs but his average was 43 points higher? I said, I still do not care and did you know his name has four consonants in a row and that is a little creepy? He said something about a green monster and I had to leave the room.
At work the other day someone asked me if I knew why the centrifuge was not working. I said," the damn thing is broke" which seems like a perfectly good answer. As they walked away down the hall, I said to myself, you cannot know everything!
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