May 24, 2007
I see hand sanitizer all over the place now. People are fanatically clean these days. Times have changed since I was a kid. We never really thought about that kind of stuff when I was young.
Don’t get me wrong, we had to wash our hands before we ate. We had to take our bath. Occasionally an aunt or someone (usually Southern) would make a comment about being able to “grow taters in those ears” to one of my male relatives. But hand sanitizer in travel sized bottles? *giggle* Not hardly.
As a matter of fact, I had an older cousin whose mother kept him so clean when he was young that he got sick. His doctor finally told his mom that she had to let him go outside and get dirty. She was not to clean him up! He was to get dirty and stay that way until evening and only then was she to bathe him! It was excruciatingly hard on her, but she did it for his sake. He got better….physically. Funny thing, he ended up crazy as a bed bug. But that is neither here nor there. (Yes, it does run in the family, smart aleck!)
My grandson, Buddha, used to be such a neat freak that when I gave him a sloppy joe for lunch he couldn’t eat it! He would pick it up, get sauce on his hand, put it down, wipe off his hand, pick it up, get sauce on his hand, put it down, …….you get the idea. Finally, I took pity on the poor little thing, cut it up and gave him a spoon. Sheesh! (Now, he could grow taters in those ears *wink*)
When I was coming up, those things never came into consideration. If they had, we would have never eaten a Louie burger. At this point it is my duty to warn any of you with a weak stomach not to read further. Mom, this means you.
Louie lived and worked next door to the service station that my dad was part owner of. We would go down to “help” dad at the station and he would send us next door for a burger. Louie and his wife, I never knew her name, lived and worked at their house. Louie cooked burgers on the stove in his kitchen. They were GREAT burgers. They were locally famous. Everyone went to Louie’s for a burger on a regular basis. This was good because at some point Louie apparently had a stroke or something and this is how Louie and his wife made their living. His wife would take the orders, give them to Louie, who would shuffle back to the kitchen and cook them, and his wife would chat with you up front until he shuffled back with your greasy bag. Louie couldn’t talk. His wife knew what he meant when he made his noises, but no one else did. She would tell you Louie said thank you and come back again. I used to wonder if Louie was actually saying something that ended in “and the horse you rode in on”, but who could tell?
The reason I believe that Louie had a stroke is that Louie shuffled when he walked and he had this other little thing that he did that was kinda telling. He drooled. Yeah, I know, right? Louie probably kept the handkerchief people in business because I never one time in my whole life ever saw Louie without one. He held them up to his chin to catch the drool. But the handkerchiefs were never wet. It was Louie that cooked. Not Mrs. Louie. Louie cooked. Hopefully with one hand.
Weren’t no hand sanitizer going on in Louie’s kitchen, I can tell you that. And no one ever thought one thing about it. It makes my mom gag when we talk about it now. Louie and his wife wouldn’t have a prayer of making a living on their own now. They’d have to depend on Social Security and Alpo now-days. But back then, they were independent and self sufficient. Proud people with a product to sell that people wanted and liked.
Maybe it was the drool that made Louie’s burgers taste so good?
OK, I’ll stop. My mom says I take this one too far.
We didn’t have flesh eating virus in those days. Or Ebola. And if we did, it was very well contained. We didn’t have AIDS, or Hanta Virus or HIV, or any of the new stuff that’s come along lately. There weren’t as many people in the world back then and mother nature wasn’t trying so hard to thin the herd.
We had stronger immune systems then. And the generation before us had even stronger ones. But, I digress.
I probably wouldn’t buy a burger from Louie today. But not for the reason you might think. It would just be too creepy to buy a burger from a 160 year old guy who’s too dried out to drool but who keeps on holding that dang old white handkerchief under his chin! Yuck!
Note to self: Nice girls don’t blog after they’ve taken their meds! Think about it!
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Posted by thought4food
May 8, 2007
It’s Buddha’s birthday today. He is twelve. Criminy, how did he get this age so fast? Have we changed kids to dog years now? He put us on a “money diet” about a month ago so we could prepare for this momentous day. Told us we had to “slim down our budget” so that he could get more presents. He’s a lil corker, that one. This has nothing to do with the title of this blog, I just had to toss that one in.
One of my kids will invariably come to me at least once a week (there are three of them, I think they draw straws and take turns at this) and say, “Ma, it hurts when I do this:” and then proceed to make some kind of unholy, improbable gyration. My response is always, “Where is my rubber chicken? Then don’t DO that!” And I make like I’m hitting them on the head with the invisible rubber chicken. Well…….(insert maniacal laugh here) I bought a ……wait for it…….RUBBER CHICKEN at Eckerd’s Drug Store on Sunday! That’s right, folks. I am now the proud owner of a brand new rubber chicken! Oh the joy I felt in my heart at the sight of that little ol box just chock full of rubber chickens! The heavens opened up, a beam of pure heavenly light fell upon it, and the choir of angels began to sing! A real live rubber chicken! In all my days I never thought to really own one of my own! I snatched that bad boy up before anyone could stop me and nearly ran to the checkout counter to pay for it. Then, I took it to My Dearest Husband’s cousin, Turtle Neck’s, birthday party. Heh.
Oh My God! If I had not been there myself, I would never have believed that it was possible to come up with three solid hours of cock jokes. But we did. Luckily we all have very low humor thresholds. Doesn’t matter what it is, we can find a way to laugh at it. (If you have a sensitive bone in your body it won’t be good for you to attend a family funeral with us.)
Every person there, adults and children alike, played with my cock. Technically it’s not a cock, but like I said, we have a low humor threshold. We choked the chicken. The kids tossed my cock around the yard. My Dearest Husband hit Possum’s friend Bubbles in the face with my cock.
Birdie, my only natural child and the mother of Buddha and Bella, was half mad at me and half jealous when I told her I had it. She said that her boyfriend is really afraid of looking forward to meeting me, because he wants to know where she gets her crazy unique way of looking at things. First thing she said when I told her I had it was this: Where’s my rubber chicken? Then don’t DO that!!! HAHAHA
It was almost as good as the time the Pillsbury Dough-boy died. Well, the voice of him did. We did jokes all damn day. We speculated all day about whether he committed suicide by sticking his head in the oven, or if he died of a yeast infection. We thought we should send flour to his family. We thought maybe we could bring about a miracle by putting him in a warm draft free place, placing a dishtowel over him, and seeing if maybe he would rise.
*sigh* Good times, Good times.
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Posted by thought4food
April 17, 2007
I suffer from a terrible, terrible disorder. It affects millions of people the world over. Sadly there is no cure. *sob*
This horrible malady causes a melting effect of the face that is frightening to little children and disheartening to the sufferers. It leaches all color out of the hair, and causes an extreme overgrowth of the skin that creates a sagging effect on the body of the afflicted.
Strange lines and grooves appear in the faces, hands, arms, even……yes, even the legs of these poor, poor individuals. Tiny dark spots show up out of nowhere. They bend over as if weighted down. Yet no weight shows up on any photograph or scientific test.
But the most debilitating of all of the symptoms of this terrible disease are the mental ones. Imagine putting on your glasses to hunt for your glasses because you can’t see to look for your glasses without your glasses on! Oh! How horrible!
Try, if you only can, to imagine burning the hair in your nose because you tried to light a cigarette that you forgot to put in your mouth! *gasp*
Sad……so sad. 😦
Imagine going to a fast food drive thru, taking your false teeth out and wrapping them in a napkin while you eat, then tossing them out with the trash. *sigh*
This malady is the scourge of millions worldwide. It has no cure. Send no money. There is nothing we can do but cry.
Youth Deficiency! Damn You! Damn You! Da Hey Look! I found my hair brush! I’ve been looking for that!………Uh…… What was I saying?
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Posted by thought4food
April 17, 2007
It amazes me that in the the most advanced time that we know of on this earth, in one of the most socially, economically, and scientifically advanced countries on this earth, we still can’t manage to keep our asses out of each other’s bedrooms!
Who cares if gay couples get married? How in the hell does that possibly have any contrary effect on heterosexual couples? And don’t come thumping any Bibles at me either. Let me just remind you that one of the main reasons this country was founded was the desire for religious freedom. That means that you don’t get to pound your mainstream Christian beliefs down my throat.
We no longer need to be fruitful and multiply. I think it’s pretty plain for anyone to see that the human race has gotten that one down pat. We might even be said to have been excessively successful at it. So, other than procreation, what is the problem?
Let’s just put it bluntly. Because heterosexuals are in the majority, we can just refuse to allow anyone in a minority the same rights and protections as us because they are different. I thought we took care of that kind of idiotic thinking with the civil rights movement. I guess not quite.
It’s funny….I notice that when children are young, you have to point out to them the same lesson over and over. They don’t have the ability to apply a lesson learned in one situation to a slightly different situation. It takes a little bit of maturity and a little bit of intelligence for them to get the hang of it. Sadly it seems that we haven’t reached that point as a country yet.
Aside from the fact that I just don’t feel like someone else’s sexuality is my business, the problem I most have with the national feeling against gay marriage is this: if it’s OK for the majority to tell gay people who they are allowed to marry, how long will it be before they can tell YOU who YOU can marry?
That may sound alarmist to you, all comfy and safe in your bed with your husband or wife. But what if your spouse is of a different faith than you? What if that becomes politically incorrect? What if the majority suddenly decides that interfaith marriages are a security risk? What if they’re un-American? What happens if you can’t marry the person you love because their faith is one thing and yours is another?
Not their business, you say? What about the separation of Church and State, you ask? Good question! What about that? There are plenty of churches ready and willing to marry gay couples. The states won’t legalize the marriages. Their reasons are all based on religious beliefs. That is a pure, unadulterated violation of the rules governing the separation of Church and State. Go figure. Not the first example by far, and certainly won’t be the last.
Here’s the deal. We let it slide that two people who love each other and are willing to make a legal binding commitment to each other, be told that they can’t do it because someone doesn’t like what they do in bed together. We let it slide because it isn’t us. We let it slide because we are ignorant, embarrassed, afraid. We let it slide. And the next thing that happens is, someone is standing in our bedroom door making judgements about whatever private things we do that are none of their damn business, and saying that we can’t do it because the majority says it’s wrong.
Couldn’t happen here, could it? Not in America. Not in the land of the free. Well, it’s not really free anymore though, is it?
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Posted by thought4food
April 15, 2007
I am at a total loss as to an explanation for sickness. What possible purpose does it serve in the vast scheme of things? Why should we become ill and then get well? Why should we become ill at all? What is the underlying cosmically necessary meaning behind it all?
Couldn’t there have been some other teeny tiny prey for a virus to pounce upon that didn’t live in my body? You would think that either the Higher Power(s) or evolution would have hit upon something! Seriously! There could have been herds of little cow like creatures roaming around in snotty stuff for viruses to feast upon and we would never have been the wiser. Or how about little rodentesque critters scampering around hiding in obscure places for viruses to ferret out?
The viruses could have banded together and made little slaughter houses to deal with the varmints they caught! And for those vegan viruses there could have been little plant stuffies for them to eat. Nutritionally sound if consumed in the proper quantities. Why would that have been a problem? Why didn’t it develope that way? Instead we’re stuck with viruses and an immune system!
The way I see it is this: My body wouldn’t need an immune system if there wasn’t anything for it to be immunized against. So, why sickness? What is it’s purpose? Why not just be well until we die?
We should live long healthy lives until the very moment that we keel over dead. Or at least not get sick until it’s time to die. Yeah! That’s it! We’ll be totally well for all our lives! The only time we get sick will be the one and only time in our lives we will ever be sick. Then……kaplooey! Yer dead.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Until you’re skipping down the street having the time of your life, and suddenly……ACHOOOOO!
Uh oh! *gulp*
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Posted by thought4food
April 11, 2007
If you have a problem with people saying what they think, you might want to stop reading right here. Because unlike Imus, I won’t be coming back later to apologize for saying it. As far as I know we still live in America. I still have a right to free speech. If you don’t like what I say, you still have a right not to listen to it.
I understand why a politician will apologize for making a remark that most intelligent people will naturally notice is remarkably stupid, like Imus did. They have a future riding on their ability to appeal to a majority of the people in their districts.
Entertainment personalities, especially “shock jocks” like Imus, on the other hand, are supposedly making their living by saying incredibly stupid things on a regular basis. Why should they bow to the pressure of public opinion and apologize for saying it? Hell, why bother apologizing for it at all? It’s out there for all time now anyway. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, dude. All you’re gonna do now is smear it all over the counter.
Imus has a right to say whatever stupid thing he wants to say. As long as he doesn’t violate any FCC rules and regs he can say anything he likes and we have no right to censure him. If we don’t like what he says we have the option of simply turning him off. As long as Imus keeps his dumb ass off my property, he can say all of the backwardly stupid, inbred thinking, family-tree doesn’t branch kind of stuff he wants to and I’ll defend his right to say it to the death.
I don’t have to agree with him, what he says, how he thinks, or even the fact that in some areas he obviously can’t or hasn’t thought. It doesn’t matter that I believe that he is probably making remarks like this out of some sort of self hatred. He has a right to be an idiot on the air if he wants to and he doesn’t have to apologize to anyone for it! He owes no one an apology for being less than a decent human. Being a creditable, decent, humane individual isn’t a requirement for having your rights protected in this country.
We in America need to remember that we are guaranteed the right of free speech. We don’t need to apologize to anyone for the things we say. Whatever stupid, ignorant, ill thought out, uneducated, pitiful opinions we might have, we are free to state them to the world if we want to and we don’t owe apologies to anyone for them.
We are free in this country to be idiots, racists, bigots, and fools if we want to. It’s a free country. So, I say: Go Imus! Talk it up!
Just make sure you stay away from my house because your right to free speech ends at my property line. I have no problem with temporarily seceding from the Union and kicking your sorry ass from here to next week.
Barring that, talk on, ya idiot! I’ll defend your right to do so on the public airwaves until America isn’t America anymore. Which could be next year if we keep on in the same way we’re going now.
I’ll put the coffee on the for the Homeland Security guys, just in case. If having sex on an airplane is in their domain, defending Imus’ right to be an idiot might be too. *sigh*
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Posted by thought4food
April 10, 2007
My dearest husband and I have the best friends. Wow! This one is going to be harder than I thought. See, it’s really hard to say exactly how great our friends are. It’s easy to tell about the kind of friends who come over on Saturday and drink a beer and hang out. Or the kind of friends who watch the Superbowl with you.
But our friends are so much more than that. If you’ve read much of this site you might know that last September our house burned down. In the minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months since then we have been firmly in the palm of our friends’ hands. They have kept us with them, safe and sane.
While Bella was in the hospital, our friends kept Buddha and Possum with them, bought them clothes, school supplies, etc. They bought us clothes. They taught the grand-kids that when bad things happen, their world will pull together instead of explode apart like it had always done in the past. Our friends changed the way they looked at their world and its possibilities. They changed the kind of world our grandkids live in.
We are their grandparents, giving them a safe place to land comes with the job description. Our friends are a different story. They didn’t have to do that. They didn’t have to do any of the things they did and they would have still been our friends and we would have still loved them just the same. But they did do it. They made a circle around our kids, all three of them, that made them feel safe and secure in a way that we could never have done because we were in the same boat they were in and at the time we couldn’t do it.
Now, our friends are the most eclectic group of people you could ever hope to meet. No two of them are even remotely alike. We couldn’t have gone out with the intention of picking completely different people for friends and done as good a job. And yet, they are all remarkably alike in several respects. They are all fantastic people. They are all interesting. They are all interested. They are all intelligent in the extreme. They are all fun and funny. They are all thoughtful and kind. They all have remarkably different personalities. Some are shy, some are extroverted, some are hyper, some are laid back, some are psycho, (ok, I’m in that category) some are insanely sane.
But when push comes to shove, we move like a well oiled machine. We have gone from single, to married, job to job, dating to parents, and now to grandparents. And we are still here, still together, still a unit. Sometimes we see each other more often, sometimes less, but we are always in each others thoughts and we are always in each others hearts.
We all have our faults and our quirks. We like that about each other. It’s those very things that make us all unique and intriguing to each other. We have differences of opinion. That’s what makes a horse-race. We like that too. We’ve all made mistakes. That’s why they put erasers on pencils. That’s just one more way we’re all alike. We learn from each other. I can learn more from one night with my friends than I can from 6 days on the Internet. And that’s saying something. I’ve been to the end of the Internet and back several times now.
I’m the oldest of everyone. The youngest of our friends is about 30 years younger than me. That gives a pretty broad range of perspectives.
I wouldn’t trade our friends for anything on the face of this earth. Not one thing. Because as long as we have them and each other, there is nothing else we need, and nothing we need that we won’t have. And as long as they have us and each other, if we have a dime, they have a nickel.
There needs to be a word between friend and family. Framily. That’s what they are. Our Framily. And if I had tried to invent them I wouldn’t have done as good a job.
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Posted by thought4food
April 7, 2007
I remember the first time I realized that I was me. That I was a real person. That I was separate from everyone else.
I was about 5 years old. I woke up in my bed with the sun shining just like every morning. I was coming downstairs to find my mom, just like every morning. When I got to the bottom of the stairs and started across the living room, I saw my shadow on the wall.
It hit me then. I was a person. You can’t have a shadow if you aren’t a person. I stopped. My shadow stopped. I moved. My shadowed moved. I looked at my hands. They moved, they opened, closed. They did everything I told them to do. I was a real person. All by myself. Totally enclosed and complete! I was somebody!
When I looked up from my hands the entire room looked different. The sun was brighter. It almost blinded me. It was very hot. I couldn’t remember feeling it so hot on my skin before. I could see a bajillion dusties floating around in it. I wondered why they never made me sneeze and if they could clog up my new lungs. That was how I felt. New.
I had just been made into a real person. I had just been made into me and turned on. I said my name to myself over and over. I danced in the living room, I danced in the dining room, I danced in the kitchen where my mom was at. I wondered if she knew that I was a person.
She didn’t seem to notice. I thought that maybe she was too busy to see it. I would just keep it a secret for now. I wanted it for myself for a while. I wanted to be me all to myself just for now. I would tell her I was me later. It might hurt her feelings to find out that I wasn’t her anymore. I didn’t want to hurt momma’s feelings. I was too happy right then.
I spent that whole day watching my feet walk, my hands make mud pies, my mouth chew, my hair fly in the wind, my eyes move in my head. I saw me running in other peoples’ windows. I felt the sidewalk hit my feet. I concentrated all day long on what it felt like to be me. It was pretty heady stuff, that being me all by myself.
And, I kinda liked the secret. I decided to keep it for a while longer. I giggled to myself for days. I watched everyone with my secret self eyes. No one else would know but me, because I was the only one who was me, now.
In the end, I’m not sure I ever did tell momma that I wasn’t her anymore. My daughter never told me that she wasn’t me anymore either. Maybe we all end up being kind enough not to tell our momma’s that.
The older I get, and the more I talk to my momma, I sometimes wonder if not being your momma is something that gets reversed as we age. Because, unbeknownst to any of us at the time, my mom, I, and my daughter all taught ourselves to tie our shoes with our left hand, you know, just in case we should ever need to know how to do that. (insert innocent “what????” face here)
Y’all all do that too, right?………….RIGHT????????
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Posted by thought4food
April 6, 2007
I used to live on a very busy corner in town. (see Great Quest For The Head Of The Possum post) The house was at the bottom of a very steep hill, ” A very steep hill”. When it snowed, all you had to do was look at that bit of road and you could tell how much because no one would drive up it.
One nice summer day I was sitting on the couch in my living room reading, while my dearest husband was sleeping. He worked night shift then and he slept during the day. It was a normal day. As much as you can call any day with me in it normal.
It slowly came to me that something wasn’t right. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. I looked up, I looked around. I didn’t see anything wrong in the house. I looked back down and started to read again. Then it seemed like the couch was beginning to vibrate…..but no, it was the house that was beginning to vibrate. Now that was odd.
I got up, pulled aside the curtain on the door and looked out just in time to see a steam roller knock one of the brick supports out from under my porch roof, ride up onto the porch, hit the house, and then fall through the porch floor into the hole underneath it.
Well howdy! I turned and walked halfway into the bedroom, turned and walked back to the door to look again, walked halfway back to the bedroom again, back to the door. I realize that I have absolutely NO “a steamroller just hit my house” etiquette. I have no idea what to do. I am saved by my dearest husband’s voice calling from the bedroom inquiring as to what the !@#$%^ just occurred.
I walked into the bedroom to explain and he is halfway out of bed and halfway into his pants. I told him a steamroller hit the house. He asked if I was OK. I said yes. He said OK. He then proceeded to add to my already vociferous bad word vocabulary by leaps and bounds. I was impressed! And pleased. You can never have too many bad words to choose from. Especially in a situation like this.
We went back to the door and gingerly went outside. Not easy since the door bumped the part of the steamroller that was still above the porch floor when we opened it. As we came off the porch a very pale, agitated, wet and odoriferous gentleman scampered up to me asking if I was OK. Not quite in full grip of all my faculties yet, and not realizing who he was, I simply told him that I was fine. Turns out he was the man driving the steamroller.
People began showing up fairly quickly. As I said in a previous post, the entire world passed our door 3 times a day at this house. A steam roller sitting where the porch used to be drew a fair amount of attention.
It just so happened that our landlord had a business just across the street and he saw the whole thing. Bless his heart, I believe he nearly had apoplexy on the spot. Everyone was very excited. Especially that poor smelly fella that was driving the thing. Eventually he began to explain to my dearest husband what happened.
He had driven the steam roller to the top of the very steep hill to use it paving a parking lot that was located just below the top. As he got near the driveway to the parking lot, the brakes gave way on the steam roller. He tried the emergency brake, but that gave way as well. By that time, the steam roller was well on its’ way down the hill. He decided that he would turn the roller towards the curb, with the idea that rubbing against the curb would stop it, or at least slow it down. No such luck.
By the time he realized that it was getting away from him and he wasn’t going to be able to stop it, he was fast approaching the intersection. He couldn’t see beyond our house to see what was coming andhe was very frightened, so he bailed out. The odoriferousness came from the fact that after he bailed out, he realized that what could have been coming was a bus load of children. The imagery was too much for his bowels.
When the steam roller was rolling down the hill scraping against the curb, I felt it shaking the house. When it reached our driveway, it turned slightly and ran up into our yard, crushed a bush, abolished the brick porch post, broke through the brand new 2 x 6 flooring of the porch right before my eyes, hit the house about 3 feet to the left of me and the rest is history.
We made the front page of the paper. The insurance put a new porch on the house and bought us a new table and chairs to put on it. And we were known for years afterwards as the people who’s house got hit by the steam roller.
I ask people this all the time……….Is it just me, or do things like this happen to you too?
The answer is always………No, Red, It’s Just YOU!!!!!
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Posted by thought4food
April 3, 2007
Where, in any logical manner of thinking, is this a good idea? We do not trust children under the age of 21 to have enough judgement or enough ability to divine the consequences, to buy alcohol. We don’t believe that children under the age of 21 or 18 to have the mental facilities to understand the significance of signing a contract. We will not allow a child under the age of 18 to put his life on the line for his country.
We will however, decide that we find a child’s actions maddening enough to decide that we want to punish him as an adult. We decide that because his actions resulted in devastation, he certainly must have known all along that it would come to pass.
How can we hold children to such a high standard over criminal actions only? We don’t hold them to such standards in any other area of their lives. We do not believe in their ability to judge the consequences of their choices in the legal arena, in the military, in the area of mind altering drugs. Why should they be able to judge the consequences in that one area only? What is it about crime committed by youth that so infuriates us?
Is it guilt? Is it the fact that this country should be protecting our children so much better than we are? Is it that our social services departments are geared specifically towards keeping families together rather than towards the welfare of our children?
Why is it that we find it so easy to say that 16, 14, 12 year old children knew with an adult certainty that what they did was wrong and that they knew precisely what the consequences would be? That they perpetrated whatever crime it might be with malice and knowledge of all that would befall their victims at the end?
We would never decide that those same children, if found not guilty, could then sign a contract with their lawyers, go out and buy a mixed drink to celebrate, or be allowed to drive home from the courthouse. They could not then go join the army and defend their country after being tried as an adult and found not guilty. They are only considered adults for this one, very particular, thing.
What is wrong, wrong, wrong with this picture?
We can’t have it both ways. Our children are either children or they aren’t. They are either too young to make informed decisions or they aren’t. Regardless of how we feel about the devastation they may cause. We call them children specifically because they are not equipped to make rational, informed decisions. There is an age of majority because children have not been prepared for adulthood until then.
The real problem is that we don’t really prepare children for adulthood at all. We send them to school to learn some arbitrary set of lessons, and send them out into the world with no real knowledge of how the world works. We have absolutely no markers of progress for children except for certain religions. We have no standards of progress except for a high school diploma, which basically means that you can sit still for 12 years and not be too annoying. You don’t particularly have to learn anything. And you don’t have to graduate high school with anything of value under your belt. You don’t have to be able to read if you can make a 30 yard pass, or even if you’re just quiet and don’t make trouble. You don’t have to be able to balance a checkbook, know what compound interest is, or understand the importance of a good credit rating.
You don’t have to understand self esteem, or even have any. You don’t have to understand self respect or respect for others. You don’t have to understand helping, sharing, kindness, sympathy, empathy, or just plain being nice.
We build our schools like prisons and our prisons like schools. If we paid our teachers like professional athletes, can you imagine what kind of presidents we would have? Instead, we put them in jail if they have a fight in school. We expel them from school for having aspirin. We charge kindergartners with sexual abuse for kissing their friends, and we try children as adults.
The question I keep asking myself is this: What the hell are we thinking?
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Thought For Food 