I remember staring out the window as we were about to leave the house at a sunny November morning, wondering what sort of things were done at a Mensan social event and whether anything truly significant would be learned in the course of the day. At the very least I thought I would meet a few people who were as contemptuous of education as I was and perhaps share a few yuks about the ghastly mediocrity of business and politics.
High SAT and IQ scores were qualifications for Mensa at the time, so the possibility that I would be surrounded by people who saw no connection between intelligence and literacy, did not even occur to me. That the written word should be pre-eminent seemed somehow simply a matter of course and I decided that books and magazines would naturally be all over the place. A portable bulletin board or a long bench seemed likely to be set up to show who was present along with a photograph and a few paragraphs on what each member was all about.
Somehow, in my imagination Mensans were long ago past that stage in their development where they would be expected to yak their faces off in order to impress each other and everyone would be wearing numbers that matched the profiles tacked to the bulletin board.
Euchre, Monopoly, Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit were beyond the boundaries of idle speculation at the time. In the end I decided to leave my toy train at home but I if I had the chance, to sit near the piano player.
This item by George Noviss was included in Montage, December 2005, The Mensa Newsletter for Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener/Waterloo, London, Windsor/Sarnia
George's 10th grade report card
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