Father's Genius by Henry P. Kramer

        Father was a lawyer in Germany. Father was brought up in a small town in Thuringia where Grandfather was a partner in a textile mill. Father went to the Gymnasium where he had eight years of Latin, three years of Greek, and several years of French. He learned History, Philosophy, and Natural Sciences. To learn the law he went to University in Bonn and for a year in Grenoble in France. At that time in Germany there was a chasm separating people who made their living by working with their hands and those who earned their money by being professionals. Professionals, also called intellectuals or members of the intelligentsia, wore suits and hats and starched collars and ties and well polished shoes. They spoke clearly, authoritatively, and in a manner distinctly different from that of working class people and peasants. Father was of the professional class and this defined his social contacts. Father was mild and thoughtful and not at all arrogant. Even so, when we came to the United States he had to adjust his ways.
        One of the precepts of the German professional male was that he did not do menial tasks that were useful. Of course, it was alright to have hobbies. Father was an amateur paleontologist. While still in Germany, we all went out on Sunday expeditions to find fossil shells and fossil shark teeth and fossil imprints of fern leaves and such. Father showed us how to use a geologist's hammer to chop off an interesting sample of rock. He showed us how to boil off the debris from a fossilized bone or shell to make it clean and pretty. But he knew nothing of handiwork that served a useful purpose. It was Mother, who, to save a little money, would scrape and paint porch furniture, or try to fix an electric appliance. Father knew nothing of that sort of thing. Father could and did explain to us how a steam engine, a light bulb, or an internal combustion engine works. But Father would not and did not perform useful tasks with his hands.
When we came to the United States, and settled in a small country town in the Salinas Valley of California things changed. Men in America fixed things. They knew about hammers, and saws, and pliers, and wrenches, and solder, and repairing cars and many more such things. Not only that, men in America helped their wives with cooking and cleaning and taking care of kids. Naturally, Father adapted.
        I remember a time when Mother was not at home, Father cooked dinner for us. Several of the dishes were so salty that we preferred not to eat. Father saw the problem and came up with the solution. Too much salt, he thought, is easily counteracted by some sugar which he promptly poured on the dishes. We dutifully swallowed a couple of mouthfuls. But after that it was never necessary for him to cook again.
        Father wanted to be helpful in cleaning the house. When he saw a dusty surface, he took out his not necessarily pristine pocket handkerchief and started running it over the dusty furniture. Not very soon after, Mother begged him not to help with dusting.
But Father was not easily discouraged. He learned to sweep floors. It was a delight to see him gather a little pile of debris with a broom and then find some piece of cardboard or a doubled up discarded letter to use instead of a dustpan to collect a bit of the pile and transfer it to a suitable paper bag. Needless to say, in spite of Father's eagerness to be useful, his services were not often required.
        Frequently, when I am in full harness as an American husband, preparing pancakes for breakfast for the grandchildren, or fixing dinner for wife, children and grandchildren, or repairing a gutter, or building a shed, or pruning a tree, I regret not having Father's knack at handiwork, how to amiably demonstrate the incompetence that arouses everyone's helpfulness and quickly absolves from actually doing menial work around the house. I have observed this ability in my sons. It appears that frequently talents skip a generation. They are rarely completely lost. And Father's Genius lives on in his grandsons.