Aestival Festival of Words

From the Word of the Day feed in the right-hand column:

aestival \ES-tuh-vuhl\, adjective:
Of or belonging to the summer; as, aestival diseases. [Spelled also estival.]

I can't recall ever seeing this word in print, but I had a suspicion as to what it meant.

Quite a few years ago, I was listening to the radio and a contest question was:

"What is the opposite of hibernation?"

For some reason, I knew the answer; it must have been one of those terms we had to memorize back in 9th grade general science, like "osmosis" or "mitosis", that have stuck in my head ever since.

I called the number, was the first one to get through and gave my answer:

"Estivation".

The host told me "Wow, you sure looked that one up in a hurry!" I tried to explain to him that I knew it, remembered it from h.s., but he didn't believe me.

He had the audacity to doubt my veracity, to insinuate that I prevaricate!

(For all my Texas readers: The sumbitch called me a liar!)

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So funny, I finished up this post and then went to my Excite start page to view the TV listings and on the Word of the Day feed there (from a diff. website) it was:

PEDANT
Definition:
someone who shows off learning
Example:
The graduate instructor's tedious and excessive commentary on the subject soon gained her a reputation as a PEDANT

Pedantic, that's me all right. I have nothing else to show off....

I noticed on my sister's myspace site that she said she would read anything, even the back of cereal boxes. It reminded me of a time when I was in the 4th grade; I had just discovered Heinlein and sci-fi and was spending all my time reading. When I ran out of things to read, I would read the dictionary.

(and I read some fairly adult stuff when I was a kid, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, GWTW, even the Mandingo series, pretty racy)

My grades were really bad that year, something unusual and definitely unacceptable to my parents and my dad forbade me from reading anything that wasn't school-related until I got my scores back up. The morning after the edict was passed down, I was sitting at the breakfast table, all sullen ("swole up like a poisoned pup") and with tears in my eyes from the injustice, blurted out to my mom:

"I wonder if it's all right if I read the back of this cereal box!!!"

It wasn't long after that day that I was taken in for an eye exam where it was discovered...in the words of the dr. ... "My God, Nita (my mom), this boy's blind as a bat!"

After I got glasses, I took a little bit of initial teasing, then my grades zoomed back up. Seems that I was just like every other boy of that age, I wanted to sit at the back of the classroom with the rest of the guys and I couldn't even see the dad-gum blackboard! (I couldn't even see well enough to cheat off of someone else's paper!) I didn't even like recess because the dodge ball would suddenly appear in front of my face in the split second before it smashed into my face!

Reading was the only thing I could do. I didn't know any better because I thought everyone else saw as I did.

My mom always got a kick out of what I said to her after first trying on my new specs:

"Momma...you look....so OLD!"

Mom would giggle, saying that I was so nearsighted I couldn't even see the wrinkles in her face, bless her.

(out of the mouths of babes often comes some hurtful words, y'know?)

She also would laugh, recalling that I read every sign on the way home after getting my glasses. "Stop!" "Yield!" "Highway 70!!!!" "Miami: 20 miles!"

I have always credited my modicum of success on the h.s. football field to my being nearsighted. After the first year of ball and my dad having to repair my glasses for the umpteenth time, he stated "It's either glasses or football!"

(he also told me that about smoking & football, but I paid no attention to him on that one)

Being nearsighted had its advantage playing linebacker; I wasn't often fooled by fakes, instead having to follow the general flow of the play, the guards pulling, how the blockers went to one side or the other. All I did was follow the clump of different colored jerseys, simple as that.

Even so, after I got to the mass of players heading to whichever side, I'd have to tackle them all, pull away guys until I found the one with the ball.

-wink-