It shouldn't hurt so much

It's been 19 years since my Dad died and 10 years since my brother, Mark, died.  Every now and then something will trigger an uncontrollable fit of crying when I think of them.  The crap we hear, the advice we're given suggests that things get easier as time goes by.  As your politically incorrect resource I can say this.  It doesn't get better.  You merely learn how to cope with your loss just enough to get by.   The mere suggestion of "It gets better."  pisses me off.  It's as if to say the person you're missing decreases in value as time goes by.  That's a lie.  Not having my Dad or Brother around hurts just as much as it did when they died. I honor their memories whenever possible.  My house for instance.  My brother had planned for his nephew's and niece's education.  Education held some serious value for him.  He had, somehow, allotted funds for the education of his nieces and nephews.  He knew that he would not reach old age.  I was living in an apartment with shitty neighbors when by brother, Chris, knocked on my door to tell me Mark had died.  Long after Mark's funeral I found out that I had a rather large amount of money coming to me.  I can't even keep a relationship going, much less get married and have kids.  That money was intended for my children's education but, let's face it, I'm never going to have children.  One of me is enough for the world.  I agonized over what to do with that cash.  After some discussion with Mom, I decided that I would use that money as a down payment  on a house.  I hope Mark would have approved.  I'm now a home owner, but its bittersweet.  I got this house with blood money, plain and simple.  I would happily give it all up if I could get my brother back.  But he's not coming back.  So here I am, in the house Mark provided for me, crying my guts out because it hurts as much as it did the day he died.  I would give everything I have just to hear Mark call me "Champ" one more time.  It won't happen.  You know it and I know it.  The hurt you feel when someone you love dies doesn't go away.  We simply learn how to live with it.   We will all suffer episodes of intense sorrow for the rest of our lives.  We just don't show it in public.  But, it's there.   It's nothing to be ashamed of.  It should be taken as the ultimate tribute to the people we're crying for.  It doesn't get better.

Where I Come From

I don't care where your family line comes from.  Some are more strict than others when it comes to marriage and the continuation of that line.  Me, I'm half Danish and damned proud of it.  My Mother is a full blood Dane.  My Mother's Father and Mother are both from an unbroken chain back to Denmark.  Copenhagen mainly.  In my youth I concentrated on my Father's side of the family but, in my "wise" years I cannot ignore Mother's side of my family.  Being 50% pure Dane, my Mother's side (well documented to boot) doesn't require much explanation.  My Father's side on the other hand... Potluck.  The remaining half of me is German, Welsh, Scottish and a dash of English.  There's supposedly some Native American in there, but it hasn't been confirmed as of yet. I live inWisconsin, a predominantly German state (beer, brats, sauerkraut).  We also have concentrated areas of Swiss, Poles, Irish, Italians and, if you're looking at Milwaukee (pronounced Muhwahkee, locally) a whole range of people.  Each of which has left their mark upon this great state.  Still, as I grow older, I can't help but notice the German and Danish in me.  I know it may seem stereotypical but I abhor disorder and have a passion for neat, orderly, paperwork.   I also have a desire to promote workers' rights and make sure society in general is cared for.  If that isn't the Dane and German coming through, I should probably be committed to an institution for being way too liberal.  There just has to be something in our genes that passes along the traits of our origins.  The German part of me comes through with these things, some of which I've already mentioned.  I abhor disorder, I love paperwork, I respect the "chain of command", I can't stand deviating from schedules, I'm not "upper echelon" but I can lead when necessary, I follow orders, I expect people to follow my orders.  If that doesn't sound like the stereotypical German Feldwebel, I don't know what does.  "But what about Denmark?  They're a neighbor of Germany." you say.  Well, so is France.  The French don't have those characteristics in spades to be sure.  As far as my Danish traits go, I think my maternal Grandparents, Arnie and Dorah, are a perfect example.  The worked hard, they followed schedules, they had rules and enforced them (not too the point Germans tend to),  they liked a little flash for ceremonies.  Where the maternal Grandparents differ from the "Teutonic" side of my family is in the liberal aspects.  Arnie and Dorah would help anyone.  Arnie started as a farmer in the Plains states but, somehow, got the call to be a man of the cloth.  Farming was (and still is) a difficult career.  But to leave that, go to college and enter another low paying career?  Insanity in this modern age.  Still, his wife and family supported him completely.  It was an extremely rough transition for them.  They often had to rely on others for the most basic things.  Food, furniture, clothing... The basics of life.  But they persisted.  Arnie was a damned good Methodist minister.  If you pare it away to the minimums, he was an evangelist.  He thrived on going out and visiting the members of his congregation.  He would visit people in hospitals, those sick in bed in their homes.  He had a knack for, somehow, being there when someone needed him.  And it wasn't limited to his "holy" duties either.  Arnie dressed as a man should.  In those days he would wear a pressed suit, shined shoes, the whitest shirts you've ever seen (not one wrinkle), polished tie clip, perfectly starched and folded handkerchief in the pocket... The works.  The farm boy was still in him though.  There's a story in our family that exemplifies this.  Arnie was out on his visitation rounds visiting a member of his congregation that was ill. During that visit someone mentioned that the family's tractor wasn't working.  Arnie took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves and went to work on it right then and there.  Dorah was the same way.  They say that behind every great man is a great woman.  Dorah and Arnie were a team more so than man and wife.  If you've been to a wedding lately you've probably  heard some bullshit about "Teams, partners... blah, blah".  Most of it is crap.  Arnie and Dorah were the real deal.  I'm a bit of an evangelist because of them.  As a mechanic I get asked, often, to do side work.  Most of the time I tell those people to, in a polite way, go fuck themselves.  Excepting family and the few friends I have, when I set the alarm and walk out the shop's door, the "shop" stays behind.  I don't bring "the shop" home.  Period.  There are exceptions.  Say I leave work and stop at the local convenience store on the way home.  For beer.  You know, to drink away the realities of my shitty career choice and the woman who's ruined my life.  I'll be walking out of the door all excited the 18 pack of Pabst was on sale when I see some poor sap looking under the hood of their car, completely clueless as to what they're looking at.  In about one second the following thought's go through my mind.  "Someone is having a shitty day", "It isn't my problem", "That could be me", "I wonder what's wrong", "GODDAMMIT! I'm going to end up helping them!"  I just can't help myself.  Somewhere in the Danish tree is an undeniable desire to help people who need help, regardless of myself.  I don't want their praise, I don't want their money, I just want to brighten their day and make them realize the world isn't full of shit-bags.  To a point.  I'm not going to stop in the south side of Chiraq to help someone.  I might toss out a first aid kit and some extra ammunition as I drive by, but I ain't stopping.  My Momma didn't raise no fool.  On the darker side, I sometimes do it because I love a good challenge.  I couldn't give a fuck about the person, but I want to find the problem, explore it and then conquer it.  I'm a goddamn viking.  Explore!  Conquer!  Move on to the next one!  So, let's move on to my Dad's side of the family.

Like the maternal side, the paternal side of my family were hard working, benevolent people.  To a point.  Both branches of my tree suffered the Great Depression.  My Paternal Grandparents, Howard "Smokey" and Esther, reacted differently than did Arnie and Dorah.  Arnie and Dorah suffered, but they kinda rolled with the punches believing things would change for the better.  They just had to hang on a little longer and "make do".  Grandpa Smokey, on the other hand, suffered through the Depression and never quite recovered.  Smokey's (as was Arnie's) first priority was to provide for his family.  That was his job.  Roof over the head, food on the table.  From the stories I've heard, Smokey had a hard time providing even those basic necessities.  He took whatever work he could get.  He even went off with the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps.  Thank you President Roosevelt) for months at a time.  Smokey even did CCC jobs in my hometown.  In fact, the house he was quartered in during one trip is but a mile from where I currently live.  Smokey was a man who did not show his feelings, but he loved his family deeply.  His actions are proof of that.  Smokey was driven to the point of borrowing money from his father in law.  The FIL lorded this over Smokey.  Smokey was a proud man, but when driven to it, he sacrificed his pride in order to provide for his family.  He was a damn good man.  But it changed him.  Esther actually had a better job before he did.  She got a job at the Post Office and was the "bread winner" for awhile.  When you take into account the "traditional family" thing that existed in the late 1930s that was quite a blow to Smokey's pride.  He eventually got a job with the county's highway department (I have his union badge) and proceeded to work his ass off.  Smokey and Esther squirreled away as much money as possible.  Having made it through the Depression with their family and their home, they would NOT be caught unprepared should it happen again.  Smokey eventually stopped traveling.  I think the last time I saw him at Mom and Dad's house was for my Sister's high school graduation in 1977.  He did not like the unknown (after the Depression, who can blame him?) and he stayed in his "known" world.  Then he was diagnosed with emphysema, crawled into bed and gave up.  That's mostly how I remember him.  I was born too late to have more than a few "traditional" family things with Smokey and Esther.  I saw Arnie and Dorah more than Smokey and Esther, but whenever I was with Smokey and Esther, they were just like any other Grandparents.  The "normal" times I had with Smokey were so few that I hold them close to my heart and will cherish them forever.  I also am disappointed with myself for not talking with him more than I did.  I was a teenager during Smokey's final years on Earth and I was completely clueless.  I regret not making the most of opportunities I had to just talk with him.  I know I've gone off the path but it's necessary in order to explain the next parts. 

The German in me comes straight through Smokey's family tree.  I wish I had a photo handy, his eyes had that steely German gaze, his nose was purely German, etc.  Orders were to be issues and then followed.  Period.  An example of that is this little tidbit.  On the second floor of Smokey and Esther's house there were four rooms.  Well, three actually.  The fourth was the open space at the top of the stairs that had just enough room for a bed, night stand and dresser.  One of the rooms was always closed.  I never, ever, saw the door open or even saw anyone go into that room.  I was never told I couldn't go in there, but following the general rule of "Don't monkey with anything" that they had around there, I never even considered opening the door to that room.  Until I was 17.  When I was 17 I was at Smokey and Esther's to help with getting things ready for the auction.  Grandpa had gone into a nursing home and Grandma was going to an apartment.  The house and any unnecessary items were to be sold at auction.  Grandma told us we could take anything we wanted as long as we told her what we were taking.  She wanted to know where things were going.  All of us "kids", my siblings and cousins, still followed the "Don't monkey with anything" rule.  I took a small tool box and some other doo-dads, one of my brothers got some fishing poles and other small items...  None of us wanted to be "tomb raiders" and it bit us in the ass.  A lot of important stuff ended up with people who didn't give a rat's ass about the "family value" of what they were bidding on.  Early in life we were given our orders and we followed them to the letter.  Germanic sounding, isn't it?  I did go into the "room" though.  It was a treasure trove of family stuff.  All of my late Uncle Jack's stuff was in there (that's a story for another time), loads of old photos... a family gold mine.  Thankfully, most of that was saved from the auction block.  When the house was sold, the "stuff" auctioned and Grandma moved to her new apartment, I learned about Grandma's part of me.  Grandma, in a nutshell, brings the Welsh and Scottish into my bloodline.  That's where my independence comes from.  Esther could take care of herself and woe to the person who tried to change her.  She was an outstanding human being and she loved her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to pieces.  As with everyone, time had its way with Esther and she was put into the same nursing home that Smokey was in (Smokey died long before Esther).  It made me very sad to see Grandma slowly waste away though her mind was sharp right to the end.  I was living near her the last time I saw her alive.  I made a visit to the nursing home to see her (I should have done it more often) one weekend.  She was very frail by then.  I remember walking into her room and saying "Hi Grandma."  She turned, saw me, gave the sweetest smile I've ever seen and said my name.  "Timothy Jack."  My middle name, Jack, was the name of my late Uncle.  Esther, as was Dorah, was concerned with her "flock".  Both of my Grandmothers were happiest when their children, grand children and great-grandchildren were around.  I'm quite sure teaching me life lessons was the furthest thing from Esther's mind but that last visit with her taught me so much about life.  By that point in her life Esther had outlived her husband (Smokey), all of her siblings and her two sons.  She could have been completely soured to life but she wasn't.  Like Dorah, Esther believed "It's sad that our loved ones are gone, but there's nothing we can do about it.  Let's be thankful for those who are still here."  It really sank in at her funeral which, I might add, was at a church Grandpa Arnie had presided over at one point.  Also the same church my parents were married in.  Anyway, during Grandma's funeral service I was sitting next to my Aunt and Uncle.  My Aunt being Esther's daughter.  Having seen Dad's side of the family as mostly matter-of-fact, not a bit of emotion shown publicly and rarely withing the family, I was taken aback when my Aunt started sobbing uncontrollably.  At that moment (yeah, yeah.  I'm slow) it hit me that I was seeing a daughter at her Mother's funeral.  Up to that point I saw it as My Aunt and myself at Grandma's funeral.  I thought "Geez, what if this was MY Mother's funeral?"  Then I started sobbing uncontrollably.  I began to start thinking of my family as a whole.  Not two separate entities.  I then started to see how all of those branches in my family tree had come together.  In me.  I'm an individual, yes, but I'm really the sum of my parts.  I'm just one lucky son of a gun in that both sides of my family, despite the nationalities, had the same core values.  Work hard, provide for your family and help those in need.  I am, quite simply, in awe of those people who made me. 

Google+ has ruined YouTube

Music and the Internet

I'm very thankful the internet exists.  The important part of it for me is meeting people who have similar interests.  Music has always been a very important part of my life but my tastes in music have not always been "in line" with my peers.  Being the youngest of four children (next youngest is a whole eight years older than I) my musical taste has been a little, er, off.  We had a stack of 45s around the house that, I think, came from an Uncle and others.  The majority of it was from the 1960s and I loved it.  I also loved listening to the "do-wop" stuff at my Grandparents' house.  When I got my first tape recorder as a Christmas gift; it was one of those single speaker things, my parents included an Elvis Presley "Golden Hits" cassette along with one or two others.  I don't remember what they were.  There was such a wide variety of music in our house that I could never have settled on just one niche.  Thank God!  I listened to KISS, Ted Nugent, Black Sabbath, Henry Gross, Dan Fogelberg, Seals & Crofts, Jerry Rafferty, The Doobie Brothers, Cheap Trick, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Sammie Davis Jr., The Sex Pistols, Iron Maiden, Rush...  When I got my first radio, an old clock radio, from the neighbors' rummage sale (75 cents!) A whole other musical world opened up to me.  New Wave, current (for the time) pop music and, most importantly, I found a station that had what they called "Nostalgic Rock" every Sunday morning.  I heard a lot of songs that were "new" to me and a lot of songs I may have heard only once or twice before.  Ya see, before I could operate a record player, a lot of the music I heard was coming through the AM radio of my parents' car.  There's a few songs that I MUST have heard in the car because when I hear them these days I'm instantly thrown back to my very early days.  In elementary school we didn't discuss music.  Kids at that age, back then at least, didn't really have cliques.  Sure, there were the "cool" kids but, generally speaking, everyone got along.  I joined "band" and started learning how to be a drummer.  Then came junior high school.  Cliques formed, the small group of kids I had spent the previous seven years with got mixed in with kids from other elementary schools, we started becoming moody teenagers, emulated the people we saw on TV and in magazines (no internet back then!)  I slugged on through band and became a mediocre percussionist.  Then, as if it wasn't complicated enough to fit in at that age, I joined a fife and drum corps.  I instantly fell in love with that music and spent the rest of my teenage years happily playing it with other like-minded people.  It was my first musical revelation.  In the corps, regardless of any perceived social status, everyone was there because they liked the music.  Each person did their best because they wanted to.  Not because they had to.  Those of us within the corps rarely, if every, spoke of it with anyone outside of the corps.  It was, kind of, an "uncool" thing back then.  My experiences with the fife and drum corps dovetailed with something else.  Jazz band.  Contrary to the band experience my brother had, there was a serious lack of drummers in junior high.  Me and the other guy became rather good at covering multiple parts.  In ninth grade the other drummer, Darin, talked me into joining jazz band.  I had never played a drum set before but since these were desperate times the band director took it upon himself to help me.  I went to the band room after school for lessons, fumbled around and just couldn't "get it."  The band director gave me a simple bit of advice that, unknown to him or me, would help me for years to come.  I had been struggling (and failing) to learn a drum part when the director said "Tim, nobody said you had to learn all of the parts at the same time."  I just wasn't able to read the music and use both hands and both feet at the same time.  So, he had me learn what each appendage was supposed to be playing individually.  Then I would put two together, then three and finally both feet and both hands.  It worked like a charm.  The part I was learning was for "Runaround Sue."  The director was amazed that I knew the song.  I could even recite all of the lyrics.  In high school I was in band, marching band, jazz band...  Mostly playing songs that were chosen for our parents but, still, songs that I really liked.  It was still a social no-no to admit liking big band, swing, soul, blues...  When most of my classmates were being brooding teenagers to The Cure, I was brooding to the Temptations.  This situation carried on for years afterward.  I had very few ways to express myself.  However, certain songs would make me feel a certain way and the emotions I kept bottling up would be released when I would hear some of my favorite songs.  I've always had the ability to recall a song for any given situation.  In fact, during high school and a handful of years after, I would attach a song to each girl in my life.  Girlfriends, crushes, the girls I daydreamed about.  They all had a song.  For example, the Temptations' "Just my imagination".  It was one of those 45s I mentioned earlier.  That's Karin's song.  I didn't pick that song for her, it just happened.  During my 11th grade year I had a huge crush on Karin.  She was the beautiful, sweet pom-pom girl, I was the dork.  Typical teen movie stuff.  Anyway, during Christmas break that year I put on that song and I instantly thought of her.  Despite my best efforts, she wanted nothing of me but that song still "belongs" to her.  Every time I hear it I can picture, in detail, the day it became her song.  I remember what the weather was like, I remember what my room looked like...  That is what my life has been like.  Songs attached to people, places and things.  But I couldn't discuss this stuff with anyone because none of my friends knew the music.  About the same time I attached a song to Karin I got my first CD player.  CDs were new and having a CD player was a big deal for me.  My parents went out on a limb to get it for me.  Then I discovered the CD collection at the public library.  They had lots of big band and jazz stuff.  I absorbed it like a sponge.  Then, I went in a whole new direction.  The woman I wrote about previously came into my life and during our turbulent relationship country music and the blues took hold of me.  Real country by the way.  Not the vaguely disguised pop/rock shit that's masquerading as "country" these days.  It's very true that you can never truly understand the blues or a sad country song until you've given your heart to someone and had them rip it up and throw it back at you.  The classic "You been done wrong" songs.  Stevie Ray Vaughan had more than his share of demons to cope with.  If you haven't been done wrong, you'll probably think "Wow, that guy can really play guitar!"  If you have been done wrong, you'll hear the pain in his playing.  Music was SRV's release.  He was putting all of his troubles out there for the world to see, if you were capable of "seeing" it.  I didn't at first, but after I met "Her" I got it.  Go out and buy SRV's "The Sky Is Crying" CD (Sadly, it was released after he died) and listen to the track "May I Have A Talk With You."  Either you'll get it or you won't.  Don't pay attention to lyrics alone.  Listen to Stevie.  Hear the story he's telling you, not the song.  I drove my friends nuts as I played that track over and over and over.  In retrospect I was hoping someone else would "get it" and I would have someone to talk to.  My relationship with "Her" was unique.  Nobody else would understand, nobody really accepted it... I had nobody to talk to that could help me through those hard times.  By playing those SRV songs, blues and sad country songs I was desperately trying to find someone who understood what I was going through.  I even played an SRV song ("Texas Flood" from SRV's first appearance on "Austin City Limits") to "Her" and said, flat out, "This is how I'm feeling."  She didn't get it.  Went right over her head.  She's a Top 40 person and has zero ability as far as music appreciation is concerned.  It's one thing about her that's always annoyed me.  Throw in the deaths of my Father and Brother and I was a seriously troubled twenty-something.  Music was my only release.  Even into my early 30's when I was again a professional mechanic, had my own house, things were going well... I had to crawl into music in order to sooth my soul.  Not long before the alcohol fueled breakdown I had in front of my Mother, I would put on "Patsy Cline Sings Songs of Love" and listen to it for hours trying to sooth my soul.  I was just beginning to accept the fact the "She" was not coming back.  "Crazy" was our song by the way.  Enter the internet.

The internet allowed me to chat with people who are interested in the same music as myself.  I could find songs that I was never able to find in a store.  I was no longer a slave to some corporate executive's choice of music to have in some blasted chain store.  I realized that I wasn't such an oddball.  I freely admit that I love Soul, Blues, Country, Western Swing, big band, jazz (not the Kenny G "jazz" shit), swing, punk...  I'm also old enough to not care what people think of me.  Do yourself a favor.  Stop listening to the radio.  Radio stations play shit to get listeners.  The more listeners they have the more advertising they can sell.  You're cattle.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Go find an independent record store, get a Patsy Cline "Greatest Hits" CD and go from there.  Don't think about what other people with think.  Just listen.  If Justin Bieber is your thing, go for it!  If Eddy Arnold singing "Make the World Go Away" makes you cry, then cry.  Fuck everyone else.  When you find a song that makes you feel something more powerful than you've ever experienced, embrace it.  The music you listen to is your unique experience.  If you're lucky, you'll find someone to share that experience with.  Now, get on with it.  You have a CD to find! 

Education. Doesn't mean what it used to.

First and foremost, I'm not a normal college graduate.  I went to a technical college, which is a step below a typical community college.  I didn't graduate.  I never finished a required "shop math" class because I stopped going to that class.  At this particular school, the "shop math" classes were the same damn thing I had in seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth grades while in high school.  It bored me to tears.  Looking back with the wisdom of a 41 year old man, I should have sucked it up and completed the damned class.  But, I was 19 and not very wise.  This little trip down memory lane is the build up to the main point I'm trying to make.

Regardless of not being a graduate of any type of college, when I left that place I still had a better education than most of today's university graduates.  Just think of how many university graduates still don't know when to use "you're, your" or "they're, there, their."  See what I mean?  I was talking to a young man this past week, a university graduate, and I used the Latin phrase "Modus operandi."  The young man looked at me and asked me what that meant.  I replied, "You're kidding, right?"  He was quite serious.  Not only did he not know what it meant, he had never heard it before.  Pathetic, absolutely pathetic.  I've noticed a severe lack of spelling and vocabulary skills in young people.  Find an average high school student and ask them what a conjunction is.  Hell, ask them if they can SPELL conjunction.  "Conjunction junction what's your function?"  "Hooking up words and phrases and clauses..."  I know that and I was a C student throughout my school years.  So, considering my not being able to have any decent conversation with newer generations, I don't understand how there can be so many straight A students these days.  In my day (and especially the generations before me) a straight A student was rare.  The class valedictorian (ask a kid to spell THAT word) really was smart and earned that title.

On a side note, I ran into the valedictorian of my graduating (high school) class.  It was in my early twenties and at a bar, which I frequented quite often in those days, when I bumped into her.  She was, I'm guessing, a year or two out of university when I saw her.  She was also stinkin' drunk, as was I.  Due to, I'm assuming, the large amount of alcohol we both had coursing through our bodies, recognized one another and struck up a conversation.  In high school we never said much more than "hello."  I enjoyed talking with her and got some comfort seeing that the "smart" kids were just people.  Again, we were both drunk.  Alcohol is a very effective truth serum (ask a college student to spell "serum" without using their phone or computer for reference.  It's good fun.)  If you don't mind, I'm going to scare you a little bit.  Think about what these "straight A" university students become.

They become doctors, lawyers, biologists, photographers *snicker*, psychologists... they become *GASP!* teachers.   The teachers I had all had similar educations.  Read the classics, memorize words, learn how to divide fractions... They may not know much  about classic literature, but they'll probably "get" a common Hemmingway reference.  They would damn-sure know what "Modus operandi" means.  Modern teachers (most of them are good, don't get me wrong) just aren't as good as prior generations.  I've talked with a lot of them.  It can be quite painful.  A conversation with a brand new teacher.  Again, it was in a bar, years and years ago.
Me:  "I finally forced myself to read 'Grapes of Wrath' last month..."
Her:  "Is that out now?"
Me: "What?  No, it's classic.  You should know that."
Her:  "I don't like Hemmingway.  He was a misogynist."
Me:  "It's Steinbeck.  John Steinbeck."
Her:  *blank stare*
Me:  "You're fucking kidding me, right?  You've never heard of John Steinbeck?  You're a university graduate for fuck's sake!!  I learned that shit in junior high!"

I really know how to pick up the ladies, don't I?  It's no wonder I'm still single.  With people that dumb teaching the children of today, it's no wonder I have to dumb things down in most conversations.  And I didn't even graduate from a technical "college."  For cryin' out loud, people.  Read the classics (some of them are just horribly boring), do a lot of crossword puzzles, run through the multiplication tables from time to time, multiply and divide the occasional fraction...  It may seem that kids are getting smarter but it ain't so.  The bar has just been lowered to make it seem like they're smarter.