So. What. Did. Y’all. Think. About. The. Election? (I’m ducking.)

Me? I haven’t formed a coherent opinion yet. I think I am growing an interest in politics but I won’t start forcing my opinions on y’all any time soon. I am ignorant. Y’all would just clobber me with your informed rhetoric! I have to say, thinking back over my post-election workday, I didn’t hear *anyone* talk about the election. Maniacal laughter about a certain unnamed browser diabolically throwing an *extra* footer bar onto our web pages? Yes. Elections? Not a peep. We are geeks. I am sorry.

That there hallowed hallway in the photoooo is the lower el hallway in the venerable old home of the Haisley Hawks Huskies. Where the beach urchins went to school in the 1990s and my cube neighbor in the early 1960s. It was still the Haisley Hawks when the beach urchins started school. Mrs. Ritsema, who was the principal when my cube neighbor went to Haisley, had a loverly collection of stuffed hawks and owls and things. I mean stuffed by taxidermy, not cute little beanie baby aminals or whatever. Well. Along came General Mann, the principal during the beach urchins’ tenure. General Mann did *not* like those musty old stuffed birds. She unceremoniously stashed them away somewhere under the eaves or wherever and eventually did away with the hawk as the mascot. Chop chop. I believe the students got to propose a new mascot and vote on it. I’m fuzzy on whether that happened while my kids were still there or not. I seem to remember Mouse wanting to name something the “manatees” once but maybe that was just a classroom thing. Anyway. General Mann is now long gone (from the school) and the Haisley mascot is a huskie. I suppose the huskie is a bit more logical for a Great Lake State school mascot than the manatee, but I think the hawk is probably more appropriate than either. We have a lot of hawks around here.

I spent a lot of time in this hallway. Dropping kids off. Picking kids up. Gossiping. Reading with at-risk kids. Helping kids [share] during “computer lab”. Gossiping. Delivering the Haisley Newsletter. Did I mention gossiping? Many a time, a teacher would come out the open door of her classroom, give us mooms a “get a life” look, and pointedly shut the door. On the other hand… The year Mouse was in first grade, her class was overly filled with kids who were — I dunno how to say this in a politically correct manner — not prepared for school, either socially or academically. Her teacher was overwhelmed. My friends and I spent so much time hanging around that classroom that nobody would blink an eye if we barged in there whenever. Stash our stuff on our kid’s coat hook while we went for a walk? No problem.

I [sometimes] miss those days. I [sometimes] miss that school. I [sometimes] miss having little kids who come home at the end of the day and need me to be there. I definitely miss reading to my own little beach urchins in the evening and then tucking them into bed, knowing where they were when I went to sleep and where they would be when I woke up. I can’t just walk into the elementary school any old time any more. I am now a terrorist.

I am a baggy old terrorist who is outta steam. So, how ’bout them thar elections?

P.S. I do not miss the elementary school enough to want to volunteer there. Been there, done that!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010 at 6:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.