There Never Is An End To Learning
One of the most exciting things that I experience over and over again is the thrill of learning something new (new to me). Most ‘new’ things are not new at all; they are only thing that we never knew until we learned or discovered them.
I imagine that there are so many pieces and parts to our own world that it would literally be impossible for any one person to know everything.
It was when I was in the 8th Grade at Post Junior High School that I discovered that I like green beans. It was lunch time, going through the cafeteria line, when I allowed myself to try some. I was pleasantly surprised.
It was mid 1970s when the name of someone, unknown to me, appeared on my season ticket for a summer concert at Pine Knob in Ortonville, Michigan. Not knowing the singer, it meant nothing to me; I wasn’t even certain that I wanted to spend a valuable evening attending the concert. I went. That night turned out to be magical. The amphitheater was filled with his groupies, holding lit candles, singing his songs right along with him. He was Harry Chapin.
This singer/poet/storyteller blew me away. I looked all around me at the sea of fans and wondered how could it be that I had never even heard the name of Harry Chapin before this evening. I became an instant fan, purchased every one of his ‘tapes’, and listened to his music again and again: ‘Mr. Tanner,’ ‘Cat In The Cradle,’ ’50,000 lbs. of Bananas’.
In 1987 and I had been single again for a few years when I saw an announcement for a scrabble activity, listed in the SINGLES column of a local newspaper. At the time I was a casual, kitchen-table type of player, and knew nothing at all about the competitive scene. (The editor of the article misplaced the notice in the SINGLES column, lucky for me.) It was really a playoff of players competing for spaces to attend the upcoming National Scrabble Tournament. I remember the awkwardness that I felt when I discovered what I had walked into. I glanced at the boards out of the side of my eye and wondered what language they were using. I had thought that I was a scrabble ‘hot-shot’. On this day I learned mostly that I knew very little when it came to words-in-the-dictionary or playing scrabble. But I was instantly mesmerized and hooked.
Today I live in a senior community in Orange County, California. I am a babe here, compared to the average resident. They tell me that the average age here is 80-something and there are more than 100 residents who are over 100 years of age. One thing that stands out here is the willingness of many of the folks to continue to learn. The ones who do not pursue learning tend to shrivel up and decay.
Learning Keeps People Young At Heart.
SCRABBLE provides us all the opportunity to continue to learn. Every game is different and challenges us to learn one more word, one more strategy. If you want to know how to learn how to become a better player CLICK HERE.