We all learn things from school, from the paper, from TV, from Unca Cecil, and so on. But what about those random little nuggets of knowledge that you know from sources outside the traditional ones?
Me? I know the address of Wrigley Field and the name of Chicago’s county thanks to The Blues Brothers.
Rock of Gibraltar, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Burbank? I first learned of those through old Carl Barks Donald Duck comics.
What unlikely sources have given you semi-respectable knowledge about things you probably never woulda learned about otherwise?
My love for food has led to learning a surprising number of words in Italian, Spanish, Japanese and, well, whatever language Indian menus are usually written in. I know a lot of food French, too, but I had formal training in that.
Well, both me and my sister found the Reader’s Digest and Kentucky Courier Journal to be a great help in our lives. We learned from them that if we had just arrived in a town 2000 miles away from home and a strange man came up to us asking if we had a job and a place to live, we’d better run like hell. My mother didn’t teach us that. She should have, but maybe it didn’t happen in her day.
I read a real biography of the man later, but my first impression of Norton the First, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, was from Neil Gaiman’s graphic novel Sandman.
As a sports fan, I learned a lot about US geography by reading biographies of famous athletes as well as learning the divisions for each major sport. I also learned about foreign countries from the Olympics.
The Bugs Bunny cartoons exposed me to great quantities of classical music. I also learned who a lot of old timey movie stars were and a little bit about pop culture from that earlier time.
Mad magazine now, taught me oodles about pop culture that was all over my head at the time. I’m currently renting movies from Netflix that I read parodies of way back when I was very young and innocent. I also specifically remember learning what Newton’s three laws of motion are from a cartoon in Mad magazine.
I’m not recommending Mad magazine as a learning aid, though, because I think a kid can do without the negativity. I sure could have.