The last days of school with seniors are taxing and silly-- there's nothing at stake, most of them are exempt from the final exam, and they should really just be released from the grind-- but that's not how it goes, so instead, to kill some time on the last A-day, I showed them Father Guido Sarducci's "Five Minute University" -- a bit about starting a college that teaches you what the average college graduate remembers five years after college-- so economics is reduced to "supply and demand"-- and then I had them present something they would remember from elementary school, middle school, and high school five years or fifteen years or fifty years from now . . . and I told them a few stories (how to avoid getting "poled" on the Linwood playground-- "poling" someone consisted of a couple of large bullies grabbing a little kid, each bully grabbing and arm and a leg, then lifting the small child so he was horizontal to the ground, spread-eagled, and consequently ramming him, testicles first, into the basketball pole . . . the way I avoided this fate was to make friends with a giant kid with a mustache who hit puberty in fourth grade and stay near him at all times . . . until, of course, the next year, when I hit puberty and could start bullying younger frailer folk and continue the cycle) and then my students presented various memories and lessons-- some cute: the parachute games in elementary gym class and some more embarrassing, but it was a fairly fun way to pass the time before I had to sign yearbooks, which is always a chore.
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