Selective ignorance.
Selective ignorance, a cornerstone of child rearing. You don’t put kids under surveillance: it might frighten you. Parents should sit tall in the saddle and look upon their troops with a noble and benevolent and extremely nearsighted gaze.
–Garrison Keillor, Leaving Home
October fool? Are you moving? It is a bit early for me to be lucid, but does that say home or Homer?
Good catch, thanks!
I love Garrison Keillor–most of the time, he’s poking fun at my cultural traditions (midwestern small town Lutherans) and we adore him for it. Leaving Home, I’m pretty sure, is the book that contains the story of the 37 Packard/septic tank. If it isn’t, hunt up his other books until you find it.
My personal favorite of all Keillor’s stories is the bedspreadectomy. Dunno if it ever made it into a book, but it was on a PHC segment of News from Lake Wobegon.
Definitely made it into one of his books because I read it 30 years ago. I try to explain the bedspreadectomy story, but no one else seems to have heard of it! I still have two of his books from the 80’s and I am going to re-read both 🙂
The bedspreadectomy ranks right up there on favorite PHC bits, right up there with Roy Blunt Jr. singing opera.