Words & Obscure Facts

Children love words. Watching them acquire and use language is a delight. The Holtons used a technique that perhaps helped us learn to love words even more than usual. Before the days of booster chairs, the Holton booster seat was a huge, unabridged dictionary. I remember sitting on one at Grandpa and Grandma Holton's. Mom and Dad used one for grandchildren and we continued the practice when little ones visited us.

Dad loved words and arcane bits of information - or would the better word be "obscure?" He had many books about words and the origin of phrases. During those work day drives from Battelle in Columbus home to London, did he think about which words and bits of trivia he'd use at the dinner table that night? 

I remember two specific instances. I wonder why these have stayed with me? "Oleaginous" was the word one night. He must have used it in connection with a man who slicked down his hair and was a "greasy" or slimy character because I've forever connected the word and that image. If we didn't know the word, and we usually didn't, one of us sitting on the outside edge of the table would go to the living room and haul back the large, heavy, unabridged dictionary. Another night he asked the four of us where the "Sea of Serenity" was. None of us knew so that necessitated a trip to the living room for the Encyclopedia Britannica. (It's on the moon, just in case you forgot.) 

The people on this side of the table didn't have to 

retrieve the dictionary or encyclopedia. 

September 1955 - Jan & Tom with cousin Melissa in the middle. 

Note the encyclopedia in the background, to the right of the fireplace. 

It was there in October 1956 and still there in December 2003 when Dad died.

If Dad had had just a few more years on this earth, I think he would have learned to use and love the Internet and the web. I can picture him at the end of the kitchen table with an iPad - reveling in the amazing amount of information that is so easily and quickly available. 

In case you can't read it, that's "oleaginous" on the iPad in the corner

Julius* & Dad about 1980

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Note: middle picture -Siblings & cousins - Julia, Susan, Tom, Melissa, Jane & Jan -  Too bad this isn't in color. Everyone has red hair. 

*For those of you who don't know our family, Julius came into the family after the last child left the nest. Julius always sat next to Dad during dessert. We children had to be much better mannered at the table than Julius did!