THE EDUCATING SUMMERS In the summer of 2017, after finishing my grade 10 courses with very good marks, I went to my grandfather’s residence as per his incessant request. He is a celebrated scholar of the Ethiopian traditional astronomical, astrological, and religious studies. As any devoted parent, he wished to teach me everything he thought was relevant before his death. At first, I was a little exasperated. ‘bartering’ whole summer’s beautiful moments to nocturnal study sessions, and rigorously designed learning programs could never be very exciting to anyone with playful character like me .After I finished the basic ‘Geez’ (a dead Semitic language that is known mostly to the Ethiopian orthodox church scholars, and which is the medium of learning in local religious schooling in Ethiopia) teachings, however, everything started to make sense. I was interested in astronomy and religious philosophy right from my childhood. Unsurprisingly, I got quite engaged when the astronomy and philosophy lectures started. As anyone might guess, learning such abstract concepts in conditions where scientific approach had never been employed was enervating. But with dogged determination, I managed to learn ‘Metsafe Henok’ –the Book of Enoch –and ‘Metsafe Aksimaros’ -the Book of Creation-, the two most important books in Ethiopian astronomy, to almost their ending. I remember sleeping as little as two and half hours per day those days. When September came, I returned to my homeland to learn my grade 10 courses. As those two months taught me, I showed diligence right from the outset, paying particular attention to my mathematics and physics courses because I saw that excellence at those subjects would be an indispensable asset for anyone who aspires to major in physical sciences. After a year of rigorous learning, I once again set out to my grandfather’s residence to advance my last summer’s schooling, again sacrificing the summer soccer, theater, and drama programs that I was always active participant. This time, I managed to get some wonderful science books to read in any possible spare time, and learn from online channels to deepen and correlate my academical and traditional knowledge on math, physics, and chemistry. I never had difficulty in my history classes; however, I thought there could be no benefit from learning the unscientific, barbaric lives and teachings of our ancestors. I thought that my ancestors had had nothing of practical value, “all they knew were chauvinism, religion, sorcery, and the like, which, in scientific perspective, have no solid basement. Teaching their history, I am sure, will only be futile work……” I murmured-every time my history classes commenced. But, after completing that two summers’ ‘course’, I found out, to my surprise, that the teachings of the traditional astronomy to be in excellent agreement with what modern astronomy teaches. I was therefore forced to completely change my prior wicked conception. I accepted the fact that our ancestors indeed had something of immense importance that they wanted to transfer to their posterity. I acceded that it was me and my fellows who rendered their entire hard work unscientifically void, but not their preposterousness. After learning centuries old teachings from my grandpa and finding them to be correct, I understood that the main criteria for accepting an idea is not its age or advocators, nor is its popularity, but only its authenticity. I understood that the past is the very first reason for the presence of the present, as is evident when observing the fact that it was the traditional astronomy at the corner stones of modern sciences like astrophysics and astrobiology. It is our condescending attitude towards the past that costs our world losing of all the intelligence and erudition of the past, and that forces it to start from zero, every time the generations change. After returning home from grand pa, I stipulated to myself that I have to work hard and excel in my coming college years. That way, I can effectively amalgamate what I have been taught from my grandpa and my community with my science professors’ lectures and teachings, and would eventually give the scientific world my best efforts. I promised to work hard till I be a versatile ‘histronomer’ –a researcher at both mankind’s past intelligence and modern astronomy- a researcher with strong academic knowledge built on a scientific basis and who have learned relevant teachings from the ancient, traditional erudition, thereby helping our world enjoy human intelligence from all eras of human civilization, not only from the contemporary sciences.