Until he was 50 years old my father did not know how his mother could see through walls.

When he was little his mother sat in the living room while he was playing with his sister in their playroom. With a wall and a hallway between them. But every time he tried to pull his sister’s hair or something their mother would shout from the living room for him to stop it. He was really angry and confused because he couldn’t fathom how she could see them.

On his 50th birthday his mother revealed that she could see them perfectly fine through the reflection in a wardrobe that stood in the hallway.

I thought Edinburgh was two different places because of pronunciation.

I always read it as pronounced like -berg, but there was this other, similar town pronounced -bruh or -boro that people talked about.

Just one of those place names that didn’t come up often at all, so I never compared them in my head and wondered if “hey, these might be the same place…” It came up and bit me in conversation far too recently where my misunderstanding was worth a laugh among friends.

That, and I thought we’d elect basically decent (as far as politicians go) people to the presidency that would at least honor tradition and the institution. Boy, was I wrong about that.