All the Answers

Yesterday evening, Marash Girl was conversing with an artist friend, a friend she had met many years ago at an Armenian picnic at Camp Haiastan.  Reminiscing about his days in New York City as an artist, he apologized for his lack of humility in years past:  "In those days, I had all the answers and no questions!"

Her friend's apology reminded Marash Girl of her long ago conversation with Dr. Charles Stark Draper  during a political convention in Texas -- yes, the man who, according to the description on the internet,  'founded the Draper Labs in 1932  at M.I.T., a lab which developed aeronautical instrumentation, and came to be called the "MIT Instrumentation Laboratory".' Marash Girl had only one thing in common with Dr. Draper:  she had attended classes at Newton High School with his son, Jim.  That fact was enough to give her the courage to sit next to the eminent scientist, albeit on the back of a bus, traveling from one convention event to the next. On that bus ride, Marash Girl asked Dr. Draper (although today she doesn't remember exactly what she asked -- probably an embarrassingly  bungling "freshman" question like, "To what do you owe your success in life?" ), the question which he answered without hesitation.

"To my mother.  I was home schooled.  My mother taught me the most important lesson I could ever have learned --  she taught me the importance of asking the right questions."