It's not always about book learnin'

School started this week around here. Poor things. Kids today have a month less of summer than I had when I was their age.

You'll have to forgive me if I want to point and bray, Ha-Ha!

School was shorter back in the 'good old days'. Probably because we were naturally smarter.

I started school when I was five and graduated when I was 17. I went to two elementary schools and three different high schools, but didn't go to kindergarten or junior high. They didn't have them back then, didn't need them.

My elementary school in southern Indiana covered the first 8 grades, but only had 6 classrooms. Our library was a book case in the back of the 7th/8th grade classroom. We had the same teacher for 5 years. She taught us to do the twist and that it was polite for men to light your cigarettes for you. I know, the cigarette thing was a strange thing to teach grade school students, but she wanted to prepare us for life. I guess.

There were only 13 kids that graduated from my eighth grade class. Me, Connie, Rita, Mary, Linda B, Yvonne, Patsy, Larry, Robert, Irvin, Rosemary, Linda P, and Gail. Joyce didn't graduate with us, but she was one of our classmates. Her family were farm workers and she drifted in and out of our school as her family migrated from crop to crop.

Sometimes I think about Joyce and hope I was kinder to her than I remember. I was never mean to her on purpose and I think I was always polite, but that's not always enough, is it?