Dec

19

Abstruse

Filed Under A 

My father was neither rich nor well educated. From the stories he told of his days in public school, I’m not sure how he ever graduated. Perhaps he never did. Nevertheless, he loved words, and he thought that a good vocabulary was more valuable than money because no one could take it away. He taught me poems I’ve never found in books. He taught me multiplication: “Eight eights are eighty-eight; you can have it for sixty-four.” But most importantly, he taught me to love words, and one of the first words he taught me was “abstruse.” I love the way it slithers off my tongue and sloshes around in my ear. I doubt if I’ve used it six times in conversation during the fifty years I’ve owned it, but I wouldn’t give it up because it’s the seed my father planted, and its blossoms have brightened all my days.

KR Mullin

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