Selling My Books on the Streets of Brooklyn 6/12 - Little Man, Big Man

 From Yahoo News, edited and with additions by me: A 10-year-old home-schooled California boy, who at age 4 became one of the youngest Americans admitted to the high-IQ society Mensa, has received his high school diploma. Tanishq Abraham got his sheepskin on Sunday in a ceremony at the California Automobile Museum in Sacramento. The boy, who left his local public school at age 7, actually completed his early exit high school exam in March, but was too busy taking courses at a local community college to have the ceremony earlier. "He was pretty much self-taught," his mother said, adding that she focused on teaching him biology and chemistry, while her husband, who works for a robotics firm, helped him with calculus and trigonometry. For now, he is working on obtaining his associate degree from American River College before advancing next year to the University of California at Davis, which the family has chosen because it is close to home. “My ultimate goal would be science, like scientist or doctor, but I also want to be president too,” Tanishq said in an interview. Let's not hold the latter part against him. He has a lot of time to realize he's much too valuable to waste on politics. His mom said that when Tanishq was seven she took an astronomy class with him at American River College, and that he helped teach her the subject. "I'm probably one of the luckiest mothers, to have a 7-year-old as my classmate,” she said. I wonder if he threw spitballs at her.

From Yahoo Sports, also amended by yours truly: Jason Millard, 24, manifests why golf is called "the great game of honor." In a sectional qualifying tournament last week in Memphis, he may have touched the sand ever so slightly with his club before hitting a plugged shot out of a bunker. It didn't really affect the shot, but "grounding" a club is against the rules and requires a two-shot penalty. No one else saw it. There's no video of the shot. And Millard just isn't sure. "Right about the time I was taking my swing is when I saw what I think was an indentation in the sand," he said. "That little image keeps popping up in my head right now. But it happened so fast. I really don't know." Millard signed for scores of 68-68, without a penalty, and wound up earning a spot in the U.S. Open. He wanted to celebrate but couldn't. Not with that shot playing over and over in his mind.

 

Did he ground the club? Was that tiny crevice in the sand really there? Was he just imagining the whole thing? Last Saturday Millard and his caddie, who wasn't at the sectional qualifier, headed out from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for the nearly eight-hour drive to Pinehurst. They made it about 90 minutes before Millard pulled into a convenience store and began searching for a number to the U.S. Golf Association. He had decided to turn himself in. "There was something in my heart," he said, "telling me this didn't feel right." Kudos, young man.

I had an hour-and-a-half to kill before an afternoon chore, so I set up shop, despite the threat of rain. My thanks to Herbie, who bought a novel by Barbara Taylor Bradford.

Vic's 4th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/bszwlxh
Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
Vic's Website: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
Vic's Short Story Collection (Print or Kindle): http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/6b86st6
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tiny.cc/94t5h
Vic's Horror Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3
Vic's Rom-Com Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kny5llp
Vic’s Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx