2020: The year questioning became a sin.

I’ve been a questioner my whole life.

Even as a wee lad, if I overheard voices raised in mirth in another room, I would enter and demand: “What’s happ’nin??”

…generally resulting in an even greater explosion of mirth, and doing nothing to assuage my bewilderment.

But mirth de damned, I had to know.

When I read books (mostly about spacefaring… or dinosaurs) I consulted other books to confirm what I’d read, taking nothing simply on the author’s say-so. Often I found, to my irritation, that sure enough, they contradicted. Did Stegosaurus live 135M years ago or 150M?? Get your facts straight, dinosaur dudes!

In high school, if a teacher said something that struck me as nonsense, I spoke up. It landed me in hot water a couple of times, my cheekiness earning me a stay behind after class or a trip to talk to the guidance counselor. But over time, I figured out how to be more diplomatic, and luckily, I even had one history teacher that engaged me when I challenged him. Even though he disagreed wit…