[conspire] Meet Robert Howard Schnacke

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Texx (texxgadget at gmail.com):

> And after hearing this story, SOMEONE is going to call you a bastard for
> telling it.  (more laughter)

Not that I mind you hauling out a charmingly antique sociological
concept -- perhaps primogeniture, Salic Law, or witchfinders will be
next -- but I must protest on the factual question, sir:  At the moment
of birth, I was lawfully the offspring of duly married couple Art and
Faye Moen, through the Sacred Power of Contract.

Blessings upon the Offer,
And the Acceptance,
And the Holy Consideration.
Amen.

This is Murrica, son.  We take our contractual law seriously.


> Next, after reading this, now I KNOW why you turned out the way you did
> (hysterical laughter)

As tempting as it is to lazily assume complex personality or mental
traits are genetically inheritable, evidence for this is pretty
generally terrible.  

Start with perhaps the best subcase, traits like musical talent.  OK, 
I grant you Johann Sebastian Bach's kids were highly worthy of respect,
but try to find some other examples.  Julian Lennon, really?  The second
generation doesn't get the genius.  

I'll also grant Liza Minelli as a fascinating echo of her mom.  But you
in general have to be generous to find strong inheritance, and also to 
ignore an obvious alternate explanation, like parental in-person
influence and family cultural environment in order to conclude that it
was genetic.  Efrem Zimbalist Sr. was a great concern violinist, and his
son Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (the TV actor) could fiddle well enough to do
worthwhile duets with Dad, but wasn't even remotely in the same league.
(TV actress Stephanie Zimbalist is, yes, the third generation, Junior's
daughter.)

The Chinese have a saying, that's also useful in framing this matter a bit:
'Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.'  The meaning is
that granddad Henry Ford might have been a genius in his field and made
huge amounts of money, but then Edsel Ford is probably going to be his 
inferior and not grow the empire, and then by the time you get to
grandson Henry Ford II, _he's_ going to screw things up and probably
lose everything.  

Hank the Deuce didn't _literally_ ruin the Ford Company and the family
fortune, but he made a good start at it,  When Ford (the company) tried
to meet the challenge of higher gas prices and competition from suddenly
good Japanese cars, the steps Iacocca took to meet the challenge were
over Hank the Deuce's objections.  And then, notably, he made the
epochally poor decision to fire Iacocca in 1978 over (reportedly) just
some petty little personal dispute.  Stupid move, Hank.

(Hank the Deuce also greenlighted the _other_ Edsel, the metal one,
naming it for his dad, and squandering $250 million in company funds
developing it without doing market testing to see if the public would
want them -- which few did.)


Anyway, as it turns out, a lot of my mindset and ways of speaking and
diction are, as many have remarked, sometimes uncannily reminiscent of
my mother's, and we had no common genes at all.  As to in what ways if 
any I echo Judge Schanke, we'll probably never know, since he died a
quarter-century ago, and there probably aren't too many people still
around who knew him (leaving aside their interest in talking to me).
My interest in verbal precision and aptitude for the law?  Amply
explained by my upbringing, I think.  Genes would seem an ad-hoc
hypothesis.  But have fun.