1939: Born.
1944: Travelling on a train through Southern Ontario, noticed that I was surrounded by people who would rather talk than look out the window.
1945: Listening to a talk show on a radio; noticed that the sound of laughter in broadcasts was assumed to affect the reaction of the audience.
1946: Finally grasped the phonetic principle of the alphabet after 6 weeks of school. Marveled at the number of my relatives who had refused to tell me about it.
1947: Still some difficulty reading about Donald Duck and Porky Pig, but started reading some of the 2 page articles in the back of the comic books.
1948: After a series of tests with very simple questions, allowed by the teacher to read 'The Origin of Species' while others struggled with Dick, Jane and Spot.
1949: Arrested for stealing a bicycle on the way home from choir practice. Began wondering why so many were better at talking and memory work.
1950: Spent hours staring out the window as the teacher talked on and on. Wondered if she had forgotten that we could read.
1951: Decided to play a Christmas carol on the piano. The effort took six months. Noticed that the Great Depression ended as World War II started.
1952: During the first 2 weeks of high school wondered why the science teacher needed 2 weeks to say "anhydrous copper sulphate turns blue in contact with water".
1953: Reading about 6 books per week from the local library. After 5 minutes or so the sound of teacher's voices merely a noise. Finding memorization painful.
1954: Repeated grade ten. Arrested for tossing a firecracker though a neighbor's open window. Swinging over a creek on a rope. It broke so did my left wrist.
1955: Took a 120 mile return trip to Fort Erie in empty coal cars of a Chesapeake & Ohio freight train in the middle of the night.
1956: Moved 120 miles from home. Placed 3rd in most grade eleven classes with little or no effort.
1957: Returned to old school and became a scholastic mediocrity again despite considerable effort. Finished grade twelve and became a bank clerk.
1958: Acquired title of 'World's most incompetent bank teller'. Wondered why the average citizen regards talking as a recreational activity.
1959: At age 19, finagled an introduction to one of the bank's prettier customers. Astonished that she in turn was looking for someone to listen to her talk.
1960: Play an electric organ on Sundays at a church while the regular organist takes maternity leave.
1961: Married, hoping that she could teach me to talk.
1963: Submitted to a battery of psychological tests for the bank.
1964: Became father.
1966: Obtained readout of results of the psychological tests.
1967: Left the country, wondering how the Ontario Minister of Education could be an idiot, but desk now only 4 blocks from Santa Monica beach.
1968: 2966 miles from home. Different clowns. Same circus. Ten years wasted yakking to the deadbeats of a small loans department.
1973: Experienced a flash of insight on a sunny Saturday morning. High inflation caused by high interest not vice versa.
1974: Experienced a flash of insight on a sunny Saturday morning. Intelligence caused by literacy not vice versa.
1977: Came home. Bought a small retail store. Didn't much like it. Felt victimized by the talking dingbats who hung around the store when I wanted to read the newspaper.
1980: New member of Mensa. Struggling to comprehend why the world puts much effort into avoiding and humiliating them.
1984: Daughter acquires BA in political science. Celebrates with a tour of 20 counties in Europe
1985: Paid $4500 tuition for a computer programming course. Lessons turned out to be a daily grand yakkathon. Unable to memorize the lessons. Kicked out.
1986: Working as a laborer in a rug factory. Found working with a factory full of immigrants easier than working with English speakers.
1987: Factory needed computer programmer and data entry person.
1988: Brains behind factory production reports, labor standards, manpower projections, payroll, alphabetical shifts lists, overtime reports, accounts payable and cost accounting.
1994: Daughter acquires MA in library and information science. Celebrates by having 2 children.
1997: Factory purchased by a much bigger factory. Diagnosis emphysema after smoking for 42 years.
1998: Factory hires a consultant at 4 times my hourly rate to analyse my activities. Soon has at least 6 people doing what I had done the year before.
1999: Collapsed lung. Quit smoking.
2000: Downsized but enjoy the free time.
2002: Achieve 20 year ambition. "IQ scores are a nonsense interpretation of the effects of literacy" included in Mensa Canada's national publication.
2003: Experience flash of insight on a sunny Saturday morning. Encourage Mensa to promote honest standards of literacy, have Mensa dues paid by the Government of Canada to compensate for the catastrophic effects of secret reading scores for the past century. Expect that Mensa should become the universal arbiter of literacy standards.

This item by George Noviss was included in MC2(Mensa Canada Communications), August/September 2003
also included in biographies DVD St. Thomas Collegiate Institute Reunion 2008

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