{"product_id":"2940013740624","title":"A Genius in the Family","description":"I Suspect I had one of the most unusual fathers anybody ever had. I was\u003cbr\u003ehis firstborn. He knew considerably less than nothing about children and\u003cbr\u003ehe had to learn how to be a father. He learned on me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe did not learn easily. In fact, as I look back upon it, he never\u003cbr\u003ethoroughly learned how to be a father. As for me, although I had no\u003cbr\u003eprevious experience, I do not remember having very much difficulty in\u003cbr\u003elearning to be a son. I accepted my father as a general run-of-the-mine\u003cbr\u003efather; he wore trousers, had a deep voice and a beard, and otherwise\u003cbr\u003elooked like other fathers. When we first met he did not impress me\u003cbr\u003eparticularly. Indeed, either he was so colorless or I was so unobserving\u003cbr\u003ethat it was well over two years after we first met that I noticed he was\u003cbr\u003ea member of the family.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs the reader will discover, he was anything but colorless. I must have\u003cbr\u003ebeen unobserving, because I utterly failed to note the adding of such an\u003cbr\u003eimportant item to our family as my sister Florence. I distinctly remember\u003cbr\u003ewhen there were but three of us, my father, my mother, and myself; but to\u003cbr\u003esave my life I cannot remember the occasion of my sister's joining the\u003cbr\u003efamily, although I was nearly four at the time. As for my second sister,\u003cbr\u003ewho arrived two and a half years later, I remember her coming very\u003cbr\u003eclearly, as I had the impression the house had caught on fire.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy father saw to it very early in my life that there should be an\u003cbr\u003eerroneous impression in my mind concerning the words \"papa\" and \"man.\" I\u003cbr\u003ewas allowed to acquire the impression that the words were synonyms. On a\u003cbr\u003ecertain occasion this led to a misunderstanding between me and the driver\u003cbr\u003eof a coal-truck. I happened to be out on the sidewalk in front of our\u003cbr\u003ehouse in Brooklyn, New York, when this driver delivered our coal.\u003cbr\u003eShoveling the coal down the coal-hole was an interesting operation to me.\u003cbr\u003eI became impressed also with the evident importance of our family,\u003cbr\u003ebecause of the large amount of coal which we seemed to need. I spoke to\u003cbr\u003ethe driver of the coal-truck on the subject, addressing him as \"papa.\" It\u003cbr\u003esurprised him very much. He denied that he was a papa, was very positive\u003cbr\u003ethat he was not my papa, and went so far as to state that he was not\u003cbr\u003emarried. What being married had to do with it was not plain to me, and I\u003cbr\u003emaintained that because he wore trousers and had a mustache he must be a\u003cbr\u003epapa. I am told that I added that most papas of my acquaintance did not\u003cbr\u003ehave such dirty faces as his.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen the coal had all been put in this person took the matter up with my\u003cbr\u003emother, stating that I had called him \"papa.\" My mother explained to me\u003cbr\u003eafter this little colloquy that I had only one papa, that he was not the\u003cbr\u003edriver of a coal-truck, but, instead, was the papa who lived with us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYounger readers would do well to realize that in the days of which I\u003cbr\u003ewrite there were no telephones, no electric lights, no electric street\u003cbr\u003ecars, no bicycles, no automobiles, no skyscrapers, no radios, and no\u003cbr\u003eairplanes. To go anywhere one either walked or was hauled by a horse or a\u003cbr\u003esteam-locomotive. We were living on Third Street near Smith Street in\u003cbr\u003eBrooklyn at this time. Even in the large cities--and Brooklyn was\u003cbr\u003eone--the streets had a very small amount of traffic in them, except in\u003cbr\u003edowntown districts. No one ever thought of stop lights and traffic\u003cbr\u003epolicemen. The average street car or wagon moved at about five miles per\u003cbr\u003ehour. No one ever thought of being run over and killed. The streets were\u003cbr\u003eclear and open. Indeed, there were very few overhead wires on poles,\u003cbr\u003eexcept in downtown New York. The streets were lighted with gas-lamps and\u003cbr\u003emen came around every evening on every street in the city and lighted\u003cbr\u003ethem, and came again in the early morning and put them out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe streets in many places were paved with rounded cobblestones. Probably\u003cbr\u003ethere was not a rubber-tired vehicle in all the world. Had there been\u003cbr\u003ebicycles, they could not have been ridden in most city streets.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOur house on Third Street, was a few doors from Smith Street There was a\u003cbr\u003ehorse-car line on Smith Street. In one direction it ran to Fulton Ferry,\u003cbr\u003ewhich, in my estimation, was a very long way off. My father went to his\u003cbr\u003ebusiness in New York on the Fulton Ferry. In the other direction the\u003cbr\u003eSmith Street horse cars ran to Ninth Street, where they turned and\u003cbr\u003ecrossed the Gowanus Canal, the water in which was indescribably dirty. I\u003cbr\u003eused to marvel that water could be so dirty.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070245716208,"sku":"2940013740624","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013740624_p0.jpg?v=1763589631","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013740624","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}