Reserve Judgment

Abstract

My dad taught me how to think. Not what to think—but how. I was in seventh grade when we started a ritual of sneaking out of the house early on Saturday mornings, letting my mom sleep late, and walking 10 blocks to the neighborhood diner. We'd settle into a booth and order our usual (two eggs, over easy, with home fries and bacon). Eating always took less time than the walk there and back. For one thing, my dad walked ponderously, as if thinking took so much attention that only a very little bit was left over to direct his feet to keep moving forward. For another, Dad would come to a full stop whenever he thought especially hard about what we were discussing. It could take forever to get to breakfast. Often, we'd talk about whatever was on Dad's mind—thermodynamics, the economy, his work. Wherever our conversations started, their destinations were, unlike the diner, neither planned nor foreseen at the start.