Making The Cut...Or Not: Heinlein's List

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.  Robert Heinlein, American science fiction writer
 
When I was a teacher, I sometimes copied out Robert Heinlein’s sentence on the whiteboard in the front of the classroom, hoping the students would catch his message, namely that we all possess buried talents waiting to be discovered and developed, and that we become more fully human by adding to our store of skills.

​After blundering across Heinlein’s words online this morning, I stole several minutes from a busy schedule see how I stacked up against his catalogue of capabilities. Here’s what I came up with:

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1. Diapers. I have changed several thousand diapers over the last thirty years. I hope my children remember that fact if I someday need them to return the favor.
2. Invasions. Depends on who and what we’re invading. Over the years, I have read many books of military history, but doubt my abilities to plan an invasion of any place larger than Buford, Wyoming, population 1. Unlike Napoleon and Adolph Hitler, however, I know never to invade Russia, and unlike some in our government, I understood fifteen years ago that trying to plant democracy in places like Iraq was akin to planting tomatoes in Antarctica.
3. Rest easy, hogs of the world. I have read about butchering a hog, and my son-in-law has participated in the demise and dismemberment of several hogs, but reading about something and actually doing that thing are rarely the same. I live the rest of my days without regret over my failure to slaughter a hog.
4. Many times I have taken the conn of a canoe and a powerboat. Does that count?
5. Design a building? Sure. I could design a building. I’m thinking a country cottage. Most likely, though, the first stiff wind would whoosh the little darling into the next county.
6. An unqualified yes. Years ago, I made my students write sonnets and promised I would write one as well. Since then, I have written over fifty such poems. Not exactly Shakespeare, but a pleasure.
7. Balance a budget? I wouldn’t brag about my abilities here, but can safely say I’m better at it than the federal government.
8. Walls, check. My dad, who loved working with rock, taught me to build stonewalls, and I can build a wooden fence. My one foray into brick and cement went well, but that wall topped out at eighteen inches.
9. If I was desperate, sure I could set a broken limb. A caveat: If you happen to be the injured party, please do both us a favor and pass out before I begin yanking on that leg. I’ll work better without all your screaming.
10. Over the years, I have stood by the bedsides of three people I loved and watched them die. Two were in a coma, while the third remained conscious until just a few hours before death. Comforting the dying is important. So is comforting the survivors. I have no idea whether I performed either duty effectively.
11. Three and a half years of military school…check this one off the list.
12. Raising four children and living hip-deep in grandchildren means giving orders. Teaching meant giving orders. Ditto on military school.
13. Cooperate? Depends. Tell me the elevator is broken, and I’ll use the stairs. Point a gun at my head and order me to walk into the beer cooler at the local Seven-Eleven, and I damn well won’t be cooperating.
14. Act Alone is the title of my autobiography.
15. Solve equations? For the first eighteen months of my college education, I attended a military academy where the math classes 75 minutes a day six days a week. When I transferred to a civilian college with 19 hours in math and an engineering course, the admissions office declared me a math minor. Today, solving simple Algebra I equations is my limit. Use it or lose it. I lost it.
16. It depends. An example: I am unable to analyze the motives of the North Korean maniac Kim Jong-un, mostly because I lack experience in dealing with demented dictators. For everyday problems of my own, I lean on the Serenity Prayer: to accept the things I cannot change, to have the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Often courage or wisdom, or both, are playing hooky, but I plug along anyway.
17. For a part of my boyhood, three horses and a pony lived in the barn built by my grandfather. Mucking out stalls was then as much a duty as mowing the lawn. For the last forty years, I have continued shoveling manure when dealing with people who annoy me.
18. Program a computer? Hahahahahahahahaha.
19. You want a good quiche, bean soup, lasagna, or chili, and I’m your guy.
20. Fight efficiently? Efficiently? Look, I’m over sixty years old and nearing the bottom of the slope. Old men my age don’t fight efficiently, whatever efficiently means here. We fight dirty. Does that count?
21. To die gallantly is a worthy ambition. Who hasn’t dreamed of heading west while staring death in the face and uttering some last memorable phrase? Unfortunately, when I imagine that tractor trailer bearing down full throttle on my Honda Accord at fifteen seconds before midnight, I suspect my last word will be brief, blunt, and of Anglo-Saxon derivation.

 
I’m giving myself a score of 12 to 14 here. So I’m only partially  human.
 
I wonder: Do I qualify for federal aid?