merton, my dad, a world's fair, and nelly

I am reading Thomas Merton’s ‘Seven Storey Mountain’…his autobiography, I guess you could call it. In truth, I skimmed/skipped past the really early stuff, the family history and really young years, and moved on to when he was around 16 years old and began his “journey”. It’s interesting to me that he and my father attended the same Chicago World’s Fair…the ‘A Century of Progress International Exposition’. While Merton, 18, was working as a barker and picking up pamphlets on the Mormon Church, my dad, 17, was checking out exhibits of “Homes of Tomorrow” and other futuristic things. I remember him telling me about how humans were predicted to look in the the “future” (1980’s or so?)…big, swollen, ET-looking heads, etc. Maybe their predictions weren’t too far off!
Interesting that my dad and Merton could easily have crossed paths. Later in life, I think they could have had a friendship and good conversations. I find myself having a big respect for Merton, even as I'm still in the beginning stages of learning about him.
While reading some of this stuff, I was sitting on one end of a bench while one of my neighbors sat on the other end and played with his I-phone…watching Nelly videos with enormously-butted women dancing. Nelly is such a respectful romantic.