Better Red

Sergei's dad thought sputnik was a "hollowed, polished ball with four whiskers of antennas. ... a scientific amusement."

Pops, of course, was Nikita Kruschev, the shoe-banging proponent of "godless communisim," who was prime minister of the Soviet Union when they beat the U.S. into space by launching a satellite, as well as a temporary push by America to improve the science and mathematical education of its students.

The younger Kruschev, who also gives bent to the position that his father was an even tempered man "[who] didn't like to raise his voice," is currently touring and lecturing as part of the 50th anniversary of the Oct. 4, 1957, launch.

Of course, his getting paid to talk about something not that important to him at the time is like living off dad's history by going on and on about your father's Oldsmobile. A phrase which, in General Motors' negative ad campaign for its cars — this isn't your father's Oldsmobile — still lives on as a very popular phrase and the only think keeping alive an extinct car line.

... Which, I guess, brings us back around to the Soviet Union. A giant bureaucracy that imploded and is no more ... which might be a case study for the genius's at GM to consider before they again tries to slight dads and their cars. Or, perhaps, what Mr. Kruschev should really be helping to explain to us?

** A dad can never know whether it is the big moments or small that will constitute the legacy he leaves to his children. **