My wife grew up a stone's throw from a college campus in Oklahoma. Her family had a player piano. Everyone in her family knows all the words to scores of Broadway musicals, including "Camelot."

I grew up in Flint, Mich., a few blocks from a colossal auto factory, GM's historic Fisher Body, a mile long on four sides. We had a piano, but nobody in our family could play it, much less know the words to any Broadway musicals, unless you count "Jersey Boys," "Mamma Mia," "Xanadu," "Grease" and "The Lion King," which I don't.

The past two-thirds of my life have been a mostly enjoyable leveling course with this exemplary woman. Thanks to her efforts, my blue-collar grammar is greatly improved. I am kinder, more patient, and far better at reading a room. I am more unselfish. I am less annoyed by Southerners. I am more annoyed by Ohio. (Not even she could move the needle there). I have learned to keep my mouth shut, at least more than I used to.

Mostly I am conversant in music, art, and history I once cared little for.

And I don't mean The Four Seasons, Velvet Elvis, and that awful Pearl Harbor movie that killed Josh Hartnett's career. It also should've killed the career of Ben Affleck, but he appears to have at least nine lives, or audiences which are preternaturally patient.

I've spent the second and third quarters of my presumptive life on highbrow pursuits, thanks to Susan, and most of it has been fantastic. Yeah, I found "The Phantom of the Opera"........

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