Rocking in the School Room

Have YOU been a bad child in school? Photo courtesy of Pexels.

I want to point out that there are a lot of really wonderful teachers in the schools today, and we will always have some bad ones too.

Now being of the senior persuasion, it has been a lot of years since I was in school. If we picked a century to start, it would be the early 1950’s thru some of the hippy years.

I was not the kind of child who tried to get in trouble normally. But somehow or other, I seemed to attract it. Let’s see how many of these things you might have had to do.

Sitting in the front corner of the room with your chewing gum stuck on your nose through the whole class.

Sitting in the front corner of the room with a dunce cap on your head.

Writing 100 times or more BEFORE you left the class, some crazy sentence that was way too long, even if it made you late to your next class, for which you would also get punished.

Getting dragged by your hair down to the principal’s office because you got up to sharpen your pencil just before the teacher started to dictate some shorthand while she was still talking.

Getting a clown face of makeup (and you did not wear makeup) because you played hooky one day.

Getting told that cows had more brains than most people, especially bad children.

Getting your knuckles hit with a ruler because you did not have your hands in proper position on the keyboard.

Being told your biology specimen you identified was incorrect and that if you questioned that, you would get an F (and later finding out it was contaminated when we got it).

And of course I had my exciting adventure in Bible School, which I wrote about in a previous post.

BUT . . . some of those teachers would turn over in their desks if they knew that I had actually grown up to accomplish some things. Not sure how I did it, but I did, yes I really did . . .

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More of Who Will I Be Today

I am not a fashion maven.  I do not care for new clothes.  New clothes are tabula raza; they have no life story, and for me, that is the most important thing I look for in life.  Everything has a story, and if it doesn’t I will make one, but how can you make a story from something that is brand new and has not lived anywhere except on a clothes rack.

I have always loved thrift stores, garage sales, and swap meets of all kinds. There is such a sense of adventure, and what I like especially is that when you go to these types of places, all racial, all political, religious or spiritual or cultural differences seem to disappear.  Everyone seems to blend into a wonderful mixture that looks like the clothes in this photo; there is a little of everything.  And people sit down at the tables to eat their preferred foods – sometimes things from their own cultures, and sometimes people are just plain adventuresome with what they eat.  But the key thing is that they all sit together at the tables, talking often in their native languages, and people doing their best to communicate with others who don’t speak the languages, everyone laughing at the antics of children, or pointing excitedly to a booth that might have extra good items.

And there we all are.  One could not paint a more beautiful and sacred photo I believe.  there is such a great feeling at the end of our time at these magical events.  People are quick to show you their “treasures,” be they the find of heirloom tomatoes, or perhaps a new variety of plant, or a huge watermelon that is going to bring a treat to a big family and friends.

I often use my background in archaeology/anthropology to do a study of a thrift store if I go into a new area, and I can tell so much about the people who live in the area by their “living” artifacts with the stories I mentioned.  I can tell if they are primarily seniors who live in the area, business people, or if they are a poor area or an ultra-wealthy one, and I can tell about the children too by the clothes, as well as the cultures represented.  And the books and other living artifacts are great clues too.  This is such a fun way to spend time discovering history’s mysteries!

I will never be “old” as long as I can find things to have fun with such as these things.  I will always be a hippy sort of person in the way I love to think of other people and our society as a whole.  The way I choose to dress is sort of a statement about all of that, and I am glad to be who I am because, as the photo says, I have never been this age before, and in one second, I will never be this age again.