In Your Ear — What I Don’t Know

By Tom Hoerr

November 1997

Original response form accompanying In Your Ear;historical correspondence invitation.

Historical November 1997 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.

I remember the old days, back when I was young and foolish.

The good old days.

Now I’m middle-aged and foolish.

Some things just don’t change. Back then I could drink caffeine coffee at night and still get to sleep. Back then most things didn’t hurt when I got up in the morning after playing basketball. Back then 1 didn’t like Sinatra. Back then I didn’t know what 1 didn’t know. That’s right, I didn’t know what didn’t know. That’s a fancy-smancy way of saying that 1 thought I knew things that I didn’t. Fools rush in, you know, where wise men fear to tred.

A lot of my life has been spent drinking beer and smoking cigars with the fools, then rushing in somewhere. Anywhere. Back in high school, I remember all too vividly throwing those lit firecrackers in to the mail slot of Susie’s house.

It was great fun when they began to pop and more fun when they continued to pop. Although I was running away, I could smell the gunpowder and hear her father’s cursing for several blocks. Clearly, I didn’t know what I didn’t know back then. College wasn’t much better.

I focused on the things that were important to me. Yes, I was president of my fraternity and yes, our intramural teams were always competitive. Looking back, I’m chagrined at the classes I missed to warm up or cool down after a rigorous competition on the field or court. Never one to let priorities get mixed, it was no problem to skip Dr. Weir’s history class in order to practice free throws.

I never got good at free throws but then Dr. Weir wasn’t too hot of a teacher either.

I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

After all, if I’d known what I didn’t know, I would have learned it. Although I’m now a semi-adult in a semi-respectable role, I still know that I don’t always know what I don’t know. Sometimes I know it but sometimes I don’t.

The problem is that I can’t always tell when I know it and when I don’ t . Take the time when I went bungee jumping four or five years ago.

I remember standing on the platform on the riverfront, it was a July 4 celebration, and looking down. “What could possibly go wrong?” I asked myself. Before I could answer, the attendant had pushed me off the crane and I fell, head-first, stopping a few feet above the padding below and then bouncing up and down.. Sure I got a free t-shirt but realistically, who but a fool would jump, risking life and limb, attached only by a tired elastic bungee cord? Talk about not knowing what you don’t know! Midway down, as I was hurling through the air screaming, I remember knowing, for that nanosecond, what I didn’t know. Today I’m sort of in the knowledge business so I spent time focusing on what we know and how we learn. People are different, but I know that I learn best when the Rolling Stones are clacking away in the background.

If I have a huge green ceegar in my mouth, that’s helpful as well. And my prime periods are between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. or between 10:00 p.m. and midnight. That’s easy. What’s not easy is what I don’t know.

I know what I know but that’s about it.

I need help. So, dear reader, in the spirt of public journalism at its best, please take a moment to cornplete this sheet and return it to me. That way, at least, I’ll have a sense of what I don’t know; I’ll begin to know it! Your help is appreciated.