"Claire Petersky" wrote in message
hlink.net...
"Maggie" wrote in message
om...
"Claire Petersky" wrote in message
thlink.net...

Claire....How did you get so smart?

Genetics.

Thanks for asking.

OK, I made the off-the-cuff remark, and since I posted it, I have had a few
more thoughts about genetics.

My maternal grandparents were both PhDs (my grandmother would have graduated
summa cum laude, but the university officials thought it improper for a
woman to graduate with higher honors than her husband, and so demoted her).
On my father's side, Samuel Petersky went to McGill University, despite
being a poor immigrant, and was the first Jewish physician in BC. So there's
a certain amount of braininess from both sides of the family.

But genetics can be a curse as well as a blessing. Sam Petersky and two of
his brothers, and their parents, all died in their 50s of heart attacks.
It's not that surprising that my dad, when warning signs cropped up when he
was in his 50s, that he took the risk of heart attack seriously. One of the
things he did, along with a change in diet, was to take up bicycling. Now,
it may be that he got lucky with the genetics, but here he is in his late
70s, and although he doesn't bicycle anymore, he hasn't dropped dead yet.

Me, I don't know if I got lucky in the genetics lottery or not. I seemed to
inherit the brains. Maybe I inherited the dicky heart -- who knows? But even
if I did, it's probably not such a bad thing to keep up the bicycling, don't
you think?


--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
please substitute yahoo for mousepotato to reply
Home of the meditative cyclist:
http://home.earthlink.net/~cpetersky/Welcome.htm
Personal page: http://www.geocities.com/cpetersky/
See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky