Please note, I am tired of pulling the keyboard under the desk out to type the number Five. So, even though those Stunk & White (yeah obviously I never read the book and am not sure if I am spelling the names correctly) might want me to use the actual number for things 1 to 9 instead of writing them out, I am not going to do it. I think those people might be dead by now anyways. I can only reference the book because of things I have heard in everyday life over the years. See, I did not major in English. Oh for years, I have lamented over the choices I made, but now that I am approaching fifty I think I need to take a different perspective, and besides I have read "The Secret" so I am finally "in" on It (The Secrect to Life). If I could do it all over again, I would probably end up at the same parties smoking my way through all sorts of crazy things. That was what I was suppose to be doing in that "Chapter" of my life. Now I am in the middle of the book (hopefully the middle, otherwise I will be dead a lot sooner than I had hoped). I can look backward and forward, the real luxury of turning fifty. Otherwise, you are too young to look back or too old to look forward, the views are disconcerting.
Third Grade, DeWitt Clinton Grammar School (who was he??)
I got Mrs. Gottlieb. She was short, fat, black hair, and wore glasses. Why did ALL the teachers wear glasses? Was it part of some Universal Power trying to project a metaphor our 8 year old minds could not grasp? These people are "near-sighted" , do not trust them for they cannot see the true brilliance and value of the little children sitting in front of them. When did I start having these delusions of grandeur? Probably high school, that is definitely a higher level thinking order.
Mrs. Gottleib was in charge of teaching us how to write in Cursive, and if you ever saw my handwriting you would know what a horrible failure that woman was at her job. My handwriting is atrocious and I can finally see it is all her fault. I feel so relieved. The only other thing I remember about her is how she loved Origami. She spent endless hours teaching us how to make all sorts of things by folding up plain white paper in a thousand different ways. Guess what? I sucked at that too. It was worse than my handwriting. When everyone else was done and had a cute little sail boat, or puppy, or cube, I sat folding and re-folding because if I looked like I was done then they would all know what an eight year old putz looks like. And yes, I knew those words back then. Putz and schmuck and dupa (ass in Polish) were part of my ever growing vocabulary at home. You see, I told you, my real education did not happen during the day at DeWitt Clinton Grammar School. No, the life skills I was going to need to get by had nothing to do with nasty ass teachers, fractions, geography, learning about my home State of Illinois or origami for that matter. I could not fold my way out of what was coming at me in fourth grade.
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