My mother used to tell this story: When she was a youngster, she went to a picnic, and one of the other guests brought a new-fangled gadget called a Thermos bottle. He explained to the group, “It keeps the hot drinks hot, and the cold drinks cold.” One of the young men present thought about this for a while — and then asked, “How do it know?”

Though I feel like a crotchety old grouch, I find more and more frequently I am responding to things my teens tell me with “How do it know?” (if not “I don’t believe that”). I don’t want the kids to grow up to be cynical pessimists (like me), but there are just too many instances today of anyone being able to say anything that dozens — perhaps millions — will see and never think to suspect, let alone contradict.

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