The Beginning of Wisdom

My brother and I were excited!  It was our yearly fall ritual.  We had just gone to the Red Goose shoe store in Bel Air to get our school shoes.  But that wasn’t why we were excited.  We were excited because we got to reach under the Red Goose and get a golden egg with a free toy inside!  And we both got clickers.  You know.  One of those noisemakers that your parents don’t like, so you do like them.  You hold the clicker in your hand and press down with your thumb to make it click, and then when you release it, it clicks again.  A double click!  After a few minutes of clicking in the car, we were forbidden from clicking until we got home and go outdoors.  My brother Phillip ran behind the house and clicked.  Then I clicked in response.  Great fun!  Then I ran past Granny Whitely’s trailer and clicked.  Phillip clicked an answering click.  Wow!  How far would that click travel?!  So, I told Phillip, “I’ll go back into the woods clicking every few seconds.  When you can’t hear me anymore, you click to me, I’ll stop, and I’ll come back with a report of how far I got before you couldn’t hear me.”  Wait a minute.  Did you get that brilliant logic?!  And that, folks, was the beginning of my long and successful scientific career.  Proverbs 18:2, “A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.”  I had it all figured out … until I took a trip into the woods.  When I couldn’t hear my brother’s clicking, at least I stopped walking.  And when I stopped and thought for a moment, that was the beginning of wisdom.