Marvelling at the fine art of being smart
Being surrounded by smarty pants — including a dog — can be awe-inspiring
I am endlessly envious of people who are integgilent ... er, intelligent. One fine summer’s day, I had such a conversation with such a person — Paul Bellerive, a lifeguard at Wascana Pool who is studying actuarial science at the University of Regina. For reasons that I cannot recall, we started talking about geniuses. Paul spoke eloquently about the matter while I valiantly managed to remain afloat, on a pool noodle, in four feet of water. Asileftthepool,ibeganto reflect upon elevated intelligence. It was, as you might expect, a humbling period of contemplation. For example, I cannot swim. I took swimming lessons and still failed at the fine art of remaining buoyant. Yet,youcanthrowadoginthe water and the fine beast will be able to swim, automatically. Scottish terriers are a notable exception, as I discovered. When I added Oscar to my life in October of 1991, the breeder made a point of noting that Scotties, unlike most dogs, cannot swim. In 9 ½ years with Oscar, I discovered so much else. For example, he was better than his master when it came to making NFL predictions. We used to do the Dog-nosticator routine in the Regina Sun. I would make my picks, whereupon Oscar would demonstrate his foresight — he was a little Nose-tradamus — by nailing his selections. The peerless pet’s prognosticative process included baby carrots, which Oscar loved. I would place two carrots on the floor, each beside a slip of paper that read, say, “New England” or “Green Bay.” Whatever carrot Oscar chose dictated his NFL pick. We did this for a number of years, during the NFL playoffs, and he smoked me every time. Oh, and he also manipulated me.hewoneverymindgameby playing me like a ukulele. Then he would give me that disdainful “you idiot” look. And for good reason. There is ample evidence to suggest that, intelligence-wise, I was overmatched by an 11-pound black growler. I discovered Oscar when Roxanne Anderson, having given birth to my godson Eric only a few days earlier, looked through the Regina Leader-post’s classified ads and found that a Scottish terrier was for sale. Roxanne is also infinitely smarter than me — not exactly the ultimate compliment, I acknowledge, but I mean this with the utmost sincerity. She can read people instantly. It is absolutely uncanny. Police departments do not require polygraph machines. All they need to do is place a welltimed call to Roxanne, who can instantly expose a liar, or tell good people from bad. In my line of work, I wish that I could see through people onemillionth as well as Roxanne. She also accumulated scholarships at an awe-inspiring pace while in university. Meanwhile, I was accustomed to receiving the “Letter of Academic Warning ” (suitable for framing). Then there is Roxanne’s husband, Dr. Mark Anderson. The learned principal at Luther College High School is a selfeffacing genius, as I discovered while reading an early draft of his doctoral thesis some years ago.
The subject matter was beyond my comprehension. He used the word “attenuate” and I thought it referred to having dinner at 10 p.m. I perused several hundred pages, wondering how anyone could ever prepare such a master work, and felt hopelessly out of my league. When the time came to defend the thesis, Mark received one token inquiry. And that was it. He was a doctor, whereas I wish my marks had been doctored. Mark has a PHD. I just had to look up the spelling of “PHD.” (That is not a fabrication. I had to Google it to determine whether the “P” was upper case, etc.) I had the lowest average in the University of Regina’s School of Journalism, graduating class of 1987. That was after taking five (5) years to complete a four-year degree. Another genius, J-school colleague Ian Hamilton, once thought I was just being self-deprecatory — but I showed him. My best mark (78) in two years of journalism school was several percentage points below Ian’s lowest mark. So there. All these years later, I still have three assignments due. Each one was worth five per cent of the final mark. Instead of applying myself, I simply wrote off 15 per cent and told myself, “I’ll just work out of 85.” Then the lazy student was off to the Lazy Owl. My wife, Chryssoula Filippakopoulos, is also impossibly smart. While I was deciding to “work out of 85,” she was pursuing her first of two university degrees. Her marks, of course, were stratospheric. For 20-plus years, I have marvelled at her ability to make the right decision, and to do the smart thing, time after time. I even benefited from her one error in judgment. She said “yes.” Rob Vanstone is the Regina Leader-post’s sports co-ordinator.
The subject matter was beyond my comprehension. He used the word ‘attenuate’ and I thought it referred to having dinner at 10 p.m.