Thursday, April 19, 2012

My husband the historian: another epiphany

So Ken is a major, major, MAJOR history buff. He publishes awesome articles and everything, so historical research is a true avocation. And whenever we go walking through the Aves together with our dogs, he tells me stories about the people who used to be.

I'm always interested because he knows a lot and he's a pretty darn good story teller. But occasionally I have those moments when I wonder if he's as interested in living people as he is in dead people. And I'll confess to an innocent bit of snobbery here--I've been making the assumption that somehow it's better to be interested in the former rather than the latter.

But I realized today as we chatted that he and I are doing the same thing. I watch the living to figure out what makes human beings tick. He reads about the dead to figure out what makes human beings tick. We're after the exact information as it turns out.

Only the expiration dates are different.

2 comments:

radagast said...

And once you know what makes humans tick, then what? "Oh, right. Bacon and chocolate. So there's that." Or maybe there are infinite internal watch-works to discover? Well I hope you'll tell us about it, anyway. Should make for multiple columns.

You're becoming so darn epiphanous, Ann, you may just float off onto a higher plane without us.

Anonymous said...

I love this -- never thought about it that way. I suppose I am more like you on this one.