AUGUST 29, 2025 – Life nowadays, it seems, is a grand tour through the land of false assumptions, from RFK, Jr’s nonsense science to the Pyrite President’s belief that all that glitters is gold, even if it’s not even fool’s gold but painted plastic and marked “Made in China.” But I must say that my world view has always overflowed with invalid premises.
Of the thousands, three stand out; one because it occurred just three days ago and the other two for no reason other than standard deviations inside my memory.
One evening during the school year when I was in fourth grade, Dad and I found ourselves at home alone. Mother and my sisters were out and about—where, I don’t know; doesn’t matter—but their absence surely altered the cadence of things to produce a false assumption on my part and to inscribe it indelibly on my long-term memory.
I’d been civilly asked, then impatiently ordered to repair to my bedroom to practice for the standard “half hour.” For his part, Dad intended to relax on the living room sofa and read the paper to the accompaniment of a Walter Gieseking recording of Beethoven’s Pathétique. My retreat to my bedroom, however, hardly meant surrender. After scratching away on my violin for five minutes—tops—I staged my usual silent protest: I re-read my latest Classics Illustrated acquisition or lay on my bed and worked my eyes around the borders of various countries on the world map that I’d tacked up on my bedroom wall or resumed work on my latest Gilbert’s Erector Set project. Anything but practice for a “half hour.”
Inevitably, I heard Dad’s footsteps coming up the stairs. Trouble. As he opened the door he said, “I sent you up here to practice.”
Argument ensued. Because no one was around to hear us, both Dad and I got right down to saying what was on our minds. The free flow of words soon escalated to Code Threat: “Okay, then,” said Dad, eyes rather bulging. “If that’s the way you’re gonna be, then I’m taking all the lumber I bought for your stilts back to the lumberyard.” (For a cub scout project, Dad had previously made me a pair of stilts. They became such a favorite after-school diversion for me, he agreed that “as soon as he could get around to it,” he’d make a new and improved set of stilts.)
I smelled a rat. Dad had come home that evening straight after work as he always did. He’d entered the house, loosened his tie and hung up his suit-coat—as he always did. He put a record on the hi-fi and took his chair at the head of the dinner table—again, as he always did. I’d observed no break in the routine that would’ve accommodated a side-trip to the lumberyard, and I doubted much that he’d taken any time off during the day to buy lumber for my stilts. Lunchtime was out of the question, because Dad’s lunch routine—lunch with the judges at Carl’s Café or DeZiel’s—was routine. Moreover, from the moment Dad had arrived home from work, he hadn’t said a word about having procured lumber for the stilt project, and before he’d appeared in my bedroom doorway, had he been in his basement workshop working on the project? No sirree. He was still in his office attire, tie and all, reading the paper and listening to Beethoven.
In the moment I seized upon the only reasonable assumption: Dad was pulling a fast one; creating a fiction that he could turn into a threat. But I was not about to fall for it.
“Liar!” My outburst shocked me as much as it surprised Dad. Except for our ongoing battle over the violin, we got along exceptionally well. Under the circumstances, however, my anger got the best of me. “You didn’t go to the lumberyard,” I said. “You haven’t bought any lumber for new stilts!”
“Oh yeah?”
If he was calling my bluff, I could just as easily call his. “Prove it to me,” I shouted back.
“Fine. Go out in the garage, look inside the car, and see for yourself.”
Suddenly, I wavered. My assumption was in trouble, but nevertheless, I went downstairs, into the garage and peered through the windows of his Buick Electra. Sure as shootin’: there was the lumber for the stilts, resting on the dashboard, over the front bench seat and on the back window shelf.
Having learned an object lesson in making (wrong) assumptions, I went straight back to my room and practiced for the required half hour. By the time I’d finished, Gieseking was no longer playing, and Dad, now wearing “work” clothes, was in the basement, taking measurements for my new pair of stilts. (Cont.)
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
