Psychologists are thinking children learn words in some unknown and mysterious method, versus the more traditional associative pairing … see Daddy, hear the word “Daddy” – assume the looming enormous thing that smells like beer, is Daddy …

I could have told them they were barking up the wrong tree, simply because all real knowledge is transmitted by pain, not by cooing about the floor with Mom, swathed in warm blankie while reaching for titty …

Most of us learned all the really deep-seated lessons of Manhood by losing limbs, teeth, gouts of hair, and blood –and if there was baby talk it was the opposition making fun of us – just before we felt the boots in our midsection …

Same goes for fishing.

We learned what “Steelhead” were only after freezing our nuts to the tailgate, wondering why everyone was giving us the wave-off when we started removing aching body parts from them wet waders.

We learned “Barbless” knowing it was the part we couldn’t see – the rest of the hook being buried up to the shank in thick, flexible, sunburnt, neck flesh … the closest medical attention being only slightly less than the isthmus of Bataan  …

We learned about fly rods and the cost of a college education only when we found out we could afford only one, not both.

We learned friendship when our buddy loaned us his rod, and fisticuffs when we stepped on it in a drunken stupor, and he didn’t see the issue closed by sharing in our profuse apology.

With all the “spare the rod, politically correct, never a harsh word” parenting of the last couple of decades, it’s our fault if kids haven’t had the educational opportunities we’ve had, or lack the vocabulary us troublesome kids possess, why admissions to Harvard are at low ebb, and the economy languishes just above flatline…

The 100 Greatest Books in the World and a nosebleed for a diploma, it’s the “Cliff’s Notes” of an ivy league education.