In my childhood, before puberty, I was passionate about many things. I loved books and learning, I loved my piano and classical music, and I cherished the people in my life. I loved our neighbors and the kids I played with on the block. I loved my grandmother; when Thursdays came around, which was "her" day to come and visit, I literally flew home, burst through the door, threw down my schoolbooks, and flung myself at my grandmother, almost knocking her down. My mother had a recording of Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin, and I adored stretching out on the living room floor and letting that music flow over me, time after time and getting "goose pimples" on my arms. When did life lose its edge?

I looked up the phrase "dumbing down" on Google and as usual I got more information that I planned on. But to put it briefly, dumbing down means a conscious or unconscious deterioration of interest in intellectual and classical subjects.

The process of dumbing down is so complex; entire books could be written on the various forces within our culture at work on young people. Because that's where it starts, when you're young. This was one of the topics I wrote about in my book Buying A Year.

I was curious and interested in everything. My parents called me "question box" because I followed my mother around, asking her questions like: What would it be like to actually meet Robert Frost? What would you say to him? Would you ask him questions about the poems he wrote?" (Robert Frost was one of our favorite poets.) And in retrospect I feel bad for my mother after the time I learned about sex and what happens when you make babies. Questions, questions, questions. What is sex like? How does it feel? When do you know you're having a baby?

I was fortunate enough to have an old-fashioned piano teacher who, after my one year of study, did not wish me to play "dumbed down" versions of classical pieces. I was playing the simpler pieces of Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart when I was eight years old; these weren't watered down. The Pittsburgh Symphony had a children's concert every Tuesday afternoon and only 4th through 6th graders were allowed to go. As a third grader I was infuriated. Along with several other students I petitioned my parents and in turn went to Mrs. Pardini, our principal at John Minadeo, for permission to go to the concerts and we got our wish. The mothers took turns driving us to Oakland to hear this glorious music.

My role models at that time were Leonard Bernstein and Jackie Kennedy. I watched a concert on television when the New York Philharmonic played Rhapsody in Blue with Bernstein conducting--and simultaneously playing the big piano parts with no sheet music in front of him! I couldn't get over this. And then here comes this tall handsome senator from Massachusetts with blue eyes and a thick lock of hair over his forehead, speaking with an enchanting accent. With Kennedy came this young queen of a woman who had excellent posture, smooth unfussy hair, wearing a new kind of clothing. When she went with her husband to Spain, she addressed the roaring crowds in perfect Spanish. And she even charmed Kruschev, our arch-enemy. Unvelieveable. And I listened to JFK once, in a speech, say: "I'm Jack Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy's husband." Oh I loved that. He was no fool; he knew what an asset she was. Together they made Mayme and Ike Eisenhower look like a farming couple. Amazing.

So what happened to all this passion? For one thing, you grow up. Why that necessarily leads to a slowing down of the senses and enthusiasm, I can't say. But it's different for girls, or at least it was then. In 1963 I went on my first diet because I thought I was fat. Also, in that same year, I stopped my piano lessons because I was "too busy" to practice. One of my mother's friends took me aside and cautioned me to reconsider this step but I went ahead. My piano teacher knew all too well what was happening to me. "The way of all flesh" he moaned when I told him I was quitting. Life filled up with a clique of new friends and I started going to dances, then on dates with the boys I met there. What happened to classical music, nature, climbing over the fence in the vacant lot on our street just to see what was behind there? I feel cold inside when I think about this.

Writers tend to exaggerate; maybe it wasn't all that bad? I own a piano now and I never, ever stopped reading. Sometimes in school and then in college I would get bowled over by something; there was this one year at Pitt when I took Russian History I and II over a one year period and, at the same time, a course on Dostoyevsky, then Tolstoy. Mark, my boyfriend then, took these classes along with me and we savored it all. At least I had the good sense to find a sensitive, poetry-reading, Tolstoy-reading boyfriend. So I still had some of the fire then. I hope I still have a bit of it now.