Who invented goggles?

A year ago, I was teaching swimming to 6, 7, and 8 year olds. This is the last time I taught swimming, and probably my most memorable. Not for the teaching. In fact, it was probably the worst I’ve ever been as a teacher in 5 or 6 years of teaching swim. It was memorable because of how much fun I had.

My favorite moment? When a little girl looked at me and asked, “Alexander, who invented goggles?”

Without hesitation, I looked and said, “I’m pretty sure it wa Sir Francis Goggle.” She looked and said, “That’s a funny name. “Well, of course it is! Where do you think the word ‘goggles’ comes from? It was named for the man who invented them! He was from Belgium. It was in the 1840s or 50s – I can’t remember exactly.” (Side-note: Wikipedia does not tell me the real story of goggles, so I do not know how off ‘Sir Francis Goggle’ is. I assume completely.)

Y’see – that’s the key to a quality bluff: Not giving every piece of information. It’s more believable when there’s something you don’t remember. Someone will always say, “how do you know that?” But when there’s something you don’t know, nobody will ask how you know it!

I’m half joking, of course. And far away from my point of this blog entry. I’m not out blogging to teach people proper bluffing technique – although I’m sure I could. (And I’m also not sure what my point of this entry is/will be.)

Come to think of it, it’s just an anecdote.

I’m getting bad at this ‘blog’ thing. I think I need something to happen to me so I can have something to say again…