My friend, an older, heavyset gentlemen, keeps his story going with, “It’s about listening. You gotta teach the kids how to listen.”

Here he pauses and apologizes as he needs a break. He often needs to take a break, but doesn’t seem too concerned with the underlying medical condition.

The cloudiness disappears and he resumes.

“I teach my grandkids how to listen by placing a penny on the palm of my hand right here-” here he holds out his left hand, palm facing me, and points to the spot where I have always assumed street magicians palm the coin.

He continues, “Then I place a nickel next to it and a quarter next to the nickel. Then I tell the kids, ‘Johnny’s mom had three kids. Penny, Nick, and ??’”

The man turns to me, and I open my eyes larger than normal, while raising my eyebrows. I mean to merely indicate that I am not ready for an interactive moment, but I also admit that I don’t yet understand anything from this listening lesson.

“It requires the coins. Who has some coins?”

I follow him to the table where some other men are sitting and my friend asks the leader and most responsible of us, “Jim, do you have any coins? I need a penny, a nickel and a quarter.”

Surprisingly, and as predicted, Jim pulls a 1986-sized fistful of pocket change out of his shorts’ pocket and finds the required coinage.

My friend then places the coins in his palm, penny, nickel, quarter. Jim is paying attention, but the previous conversation he was apart of continues to unfold as well.

“Johnny’s mom had three kids. Penny, Nick, and ??”

Wishing to show my language prowess, I forget about the spelling of ‘quarter’ and begin to contemplate every name that starts with the ‘kwart’ sound.

“Kwart? Kurt?” I guess.

Shaking his head in shame, my friend repeats, “Johnny’s-”

“JOHNNY!” I exclaim, joyfully. “Johnny,” I then repeat, with a pronounced note and loud look of playful disgust.

Jim knowingly smiles.

My friend says to him, “You’ve heard this one before, huh?”

A slow nod from Jim answers.

“You see, Pete, someone has to teach them how to listen.”

****

Here’s the catch, faithful reader. Anyone who gets the right answer already knows how to listen. The all important and usually lacking skill in the human, imho, that my friend taught his grandkids (and I) is humility.