I like to think that I'm not the only person who thinks that he grew up stupid. Looking back, I did a lot of stupid things.

For example, my next door neighbor and I had motorcycles in high school. Kids and motorcycles and stupid things go hand in hand.

Near my home town was a long stretch of highway coming down a long hill from a four-way stop. We would ride our motorcycles behind transport trucks and trailers.

That may not sound so dangerous except we would get behind the trailer and ride along in the draft; a pocket of stable air that would suck the motorcycle along at the same speed as the truck.

Guess what? The trucks would tear down the highway from the stop sign and reach up to 85 miles per hour. To catch the draft of the trailer and achieve speeds beyond which the motorcycle was capable (mine would go about 65 miles per hour top speed) we had to get within five feet of the trailer.

Let me repeat. We rode our motorcycles within five feet of a transport truck and trailer going down the highway at speeds up to 85 miles per hour.

We lived to tell about it.

Stupidity goes beyond the event. If we lived to tell about it, and we did (often with pride and embellishment), then we end up giving other kids ideas about their opportunities to engage in stupid behavior.

If that's the case, and it is, then our ability to dream up stupid behavior in our youth probably came from the adults around us at the time. Parent, uncles and aunts, next door neighbors.

Stupidity and the performance of stupid tricks is not purely the domain of the young and innocent. It's learned behavior.

Therefore, stupidity is inherited. We inherited stupidity from our parents and other adults.