It's been forty years now ... forty years ago today. April 4, 1968 - the day the earth stood still - the day that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

To many, it's simply a milestone of our historical era. Time passes, history is made, important people die, events happen - repeat ad infinitum.

But perhaps that's what makes this so worrisome to me, so sad, so heart-wrenching - because to many, it IS simply "another day in history", another day left to the annals of the history books, for children and their children to read about years and years from now.

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Language is an amazing thing. Yes, we use it (or try to anyways!) on a daily basis - but sometimes the true meaning and context of words gets lost in the cultural usage of the word. Let's face it - language is only as good as our understanding of the words we use. I've found it helpful to, at times, go back to a dictionary and revisit the true definition of a word and the context in which it is relevant.

Here's a recent example from the annals of my world:

ed·u·ca·tion – noun:

1. the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.

Interesting concept.

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... I learned in kindergarten ... or at least that's how the book is entitled, yes?

Admittedly, Robert Fulghum gave us a delightful exploration of this in his 1986 novel. I read it after much cajoling from those around me. Friends said that it was a "must read" - but I always get a little conerned about the "must read" list because it usually involves some level of "pablum for the masses". Eventually, I read it - and it was definitely a necessary addition to my bookshelf.

Yesterday, I found myself wondering - if perhaps "all I really need to know" was something I learned in utero. Perhaps kindergarten was merely my graduate degree. If that were perhaps the case, then my PhD would be life-long learning. Of course, this evolved into the thought of "if PhD stands for 'Piled Higher and Deeper' then day-to-day life was definitely given me a doctoral dissertation"!

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