F – Falling, What do you see?

Posted on April 7, 2021 by hdh

 

F – Falling – What do you see? 

Do you ever dream of yourself and you’re falling. It might be out of bed. It might be from a mountainous adventure high up in the Himalayas. It might even be on an uncontrolled rocket ship or asteroid hurtling towards Earth. Falling comes in all shapes and sizes when it pops into my head in a dream. In some cases, it is a harmless fall, but in others, there are definitely dire consequences, usually my demise. 

It’s been said that when you are approaching imminent death that your life will pass before your eyes. If that is the case, how much time do you need to replay that life? And what are the events in your life that you see? Is there a cache of memories in a section of our brains that are organized and slated for “Please play this video in case of imminent destruction.”? As you grow older does this cache continually revise and edit itself to fit within the confines of a certain time limit? Or are there multiple caches that can be chosen from, with release instructions that correspond to the quick calculations your brain makes as to how much time it has to play said video?

These of course are things that take up space in my head when I sleep. What are the important things in your life that you want to see in the last few moments you have? Somehow I don’t think I’ll have a choice as to what my brain will pick, even though my dreams show me otherwise. 

What would be interesting is if you could choose where you get to see your final falling dreams. On Earth, gravity’s pull would have you fall at 32.1 feet per second per second. That means if you were to free fall out of a plane flying at 42,000 feet (ignoring possible slow down from air friction on your way down) it would take you 51.1 seconds reaching a Splat velocity of 1,644 ft./sec. before you hit the surface. How many parts of your life can you go through in less than a minute?

On Jupiter, gravity’s pull is 75.9 feet per second per second. That would give you only 33.27 seconds, reaching a Splat velocity of 2,525 ft./sec.

Need more time? First, you could try the moon. Its pull from gravity is only 12.1 feet per second per second. You would have over 2 minutes of time (125.9 seconds). And if you were on the planetoid Pluto, which only has a gravity pull of .08 feet per second per second, you would actually have 17.07 minutes of time with a Splat velocity of 81.98 ft./sec. or a little over 55 mph. An epic amount of time and at that speed, you might even survive assuming you figure out how to breathe there. I write complete stories about myself in my writing groups given almost that amount of time. 

So what do you think you will see when you fall from grace in life? What will you remember? Don’t let your disorganized imaginary dreams guide the way. Make your memories ones worth seeing again, with no regrets. In my opinion, take all the time you need. 

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E – Elephant as a Pet

Posted on April 6, 2021 by hdh

E – Elephant as a Pet

The greatest thing you can ever get

Is to have an elephant for a pet

I found one once out in the back

It was quite small and begged a snack

Of peanuts which I kindly gave

For I had heard that’s what they crave

My mom was out, no one at home

I didn’t want for him to roam

I asked him in, to live upstairs

He was the answer to my prayers

My parents wouldn’t let me have a dog

nor cat, nor bird, nor little hog.

But if he promised not to squirm

I might just keep this pachyderm

He is quite small, they won’t find out

If I could only hide his snout

And find a place where he could sleep

I’m sure they’ll let for me to keep

An elephant to call my own

At least until he’s fully grown

But no, they tell, he cannot stay

It costs too much, they’re bills to pay

But if I care and do it all

They’ll let me have a pet that’s small

So elephant you’ve solved my wish

To have a pet, it’s just a fish.

———————————

Special appreciation to the two 4th graders that gave me the prompt for this piece.

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D – Decisions to be made

Posted on April 5, 2021 by hdh

D – Decisions to be made

This continues the story from B – What’s in the Bag? You may want to read that first if you haven’t already. 

————————

This was a big decision to make and I didn’t want to make it alone. I decided to call my friend Ronald up for advice. Ronald had been my friend since elementary school in the Bronx. He was always coming up with ideas of things to do and I trusted his judgment despite the opinions of others, mostly my family. Suffice it to say, Ronald and I had made a few decisions that hadn’t turned out the way I expected they would.

Regardless of public opinion, I called Ronald and explained what had happened at the laundromat. His response was quick.

“Definitely keep the money. Think of all the things we could buy and places we could go.” Ronald was quite enthusiastic and used the word “we” a lot. 

“But what if this is tainted money and we get caught?” I asked. 

Ronald answered, “Why would we get caught? Who’s going to admit that they left $500,000 in a laundry bag at a laundromat, especially if it is ill-gotten gain.”

This didn’t help my decision. I had some fear that if it was illegal money that I could get in real trouble and possibly put in jail.

Ronald suggested that we keep the money hidden at home and periodically go to the laundromat and see if there were any signs posted for lost cash or any suspicious characters hanging around that might be connected with stolen or counterfeit money. And that’s exactly what we did. One or both of us would pass by every day and look for clues as to the money’s origin. And since I occasionally had to do laundry there, I could get a closer look at the inside of the laundromat. Of course, I was smart enough not to bring my dirty laundry there in my tie-dyed bag, so it wouldn’t be recognized and I stayed there for the entire time my washing and drying took to be done. 

We continued this for three weeks and felt sure that whoever had left the money there, was not coming back. As Ronald said, “Finders keepers, losers weepers.”

The next decision we had to make was where to keep the money. I was afraid that if I put it in a bank there would be too many questions asked. But I also wasn’t comfortable with leaving it home, in case someone broke into my house and found it. Ronald suggested that we could keep it at his house, where he had a lockbox that would keep it secure. So without thinking, I threw all of the money into my laundry bag (the tie-dyed one), slung it over my shoulder, walked over to Ronald’s house, and gave him the money. 

In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have used the same bag that originally held the money. Little did I know, I was being followed. Something I found out the next day when I received a rather alarming phone call from Ronald. The money was gone.

…to be continued in “G – Gone!”

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C – A Computerized Mind

Posted on April 3, 2021 by hdh

C – A Computerized Mind

One of my favorite characters in the Star Trek universe is Data. For those of you non-Trekkies, he was an android with a positronic brain. Looked human, acted human (minus emotions, which weren’t originally built into his brain), and for all intents and purposes was human. From my point of view, he was really cool. Wouldn’t everybody want to have one? 

I’m more interested in his positronic brain. I dream sometimes about having the ability to do some of the things that Data could. I would love to be able to converse in multiple languages, fluently. And also be able to learn a new language or concept rapidly. 

I’m a musician. So imagine what it would be like to be able not only to learn how to play a multitude of instruments proficiently but also be able to mimic the styles of other musicians and be able to create new styles by combining some of those famous ones. I would also be able to compose music. Again that would be very cool. 

Having a brain that can do instant calculations and figure out solutions to problems would be a plus. Think of all of the daily problems you have that you could solve or even being more altruistic how many world problems you could lend a hand to? Climate change, world hunger, pandemic prevention, etc. 

I’m a rather slow reader. I tend to read aloud in my head as I read books and magazines. Being a slow reader makes time to create images in my head and also helps me remember some of the stories that I’ve read. The difficulty with being a slow reader is that it limits the number of things I can read.  There are so many books on my “To Read” list, that I’ll never get to them all. Unless it is a riveting novel or story I’m reading, it takes me a long time to finish. With a positronic brain, I could speed read books in minutes instead of weeks and months. It would also allow me to retain all of the information that I read, which would be very helpful when reading technical or informational books or directions.  I would have a much greater cache of information and ideas that I could use, not only in my writing but in my storytelling too.

The biggest problem that Data had was having no emotions and being “data” driven. He had no intuition or creativity of thought. If there was no data or rules to support what he had to decide or do he was stymied. He did manage to learn some of those skills before the series ended. 

I wish that the brain that I would get would include the features that Data’s lacked. I want to be able to feel and express love, kindness, empathy, and the like. I want to maintain the originality of thought, the ability to come up with ideas that are new and creative, to be able to express myself in multiple ways. 

In other words, as much as I want to have a computerized mind and all the enhancements that come with it, I still want to be me. A guy can dream, can’t he?

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B – What’s in the bag?

Posted on April 2, 2021 by hdh

B – What’s in the Bag?

If there is one thing I hate doing, it’s laundry. If I owned a washer and dryer, it might be easier to get my laundry done, but I don’t. So every week or so I fill up a bag with laundry and trudge on down to the laundromat. It’s so boring. I have better things to do.  Most of the time I just start my laundry and leave. At some point, I come back, and if I’m lucky and late some other customer got pissed off enough that I wasn’t there and has taken my laundry out for me and dumped it on a table. The same thing goes for the dryer. I mean, who wants to wait in a laundromat for over 2 hours. Not me. 

Things changed yesterday. I did my usual trip, brought my bag of laundry, threw the clothes in the machine, and left. I got delayed at the bar I frequent, so didn’t return until 3 hours later. When I got there, there was no one in the place. My wet clothes which should have been either in a washing machine or thrown out on one of the tables were nowhere to be seen. However, I did notice my laundry bag in a corner, tucked in behind one of the dryers. I checked the bag and it was mine; no one else would put their laundry in a tie-dyed bag with a sign on it that said, “If found, please wash or burn”.

Someone must have not only unloaded my clothes but then dried them, folded them neatly, and even wrapped them in separate packages of parcel paper. Not wanting to appear ungrateful, I wrote a thank you note and signed it with my first name. No need to give more information out than necessary. 

The bag seemed a lot heavier than I thought it would be. It must have been due to the excess wrapping paper. When I got home I just threw the bag on a chair next to my bed and didn’t give it another thought until this morning. 

I dumped all of the packages onto my bed. The strange thing about it was that all the packages were pretty much the same size. I hadn’t noticed that yesterday. I was beginning to get suspicious. I carefully unwrapped one of the top parcels and found it was a pair of my pants and t-shirt. However, to my surprise, the package underneath it did not contain any of my clothes. It contained a stack of $100 bills. In fact, 500 hundred of them. As I moved on to open other packages they pretty much all contained large stacks of money. When I was done, I had unpackaged, two shirts, one pair of pants, 6 pairs of socks, and $500,000. 

I wasn’t sure what to do next. Should I go back to the laundromat and return the bag with the money? Should I go back to the laundromat and try to retrieve the note I left and then keep the money? Should I report what I had found to the police? 

… to be continued in “D – Decision to be made.”

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A – Alone

Posted on April 1, 2021 by hdh

A –  Alone

Alice was all alone. It’s not that she lived by herself. There were plenty of people in the house where she resided. That would be her husband and 3 children, but she was still alone. Things went on, as usual, food got prepared and served, her children went to school, her husband to work, and she even had a job to go to. But she was alone. It was like she didn’t exist at all.

It was surprising that nobody noticed when she was around. They just accepted the work that she did and that was that. She had no interactions at all. Was this the way life was supposed to be? She hoped not. But as far back as she could remember this was the way it had been. Obviously, there must have been a time when she grew up and met her husband to be, and had the children that she didn’t feel alone. But she had no memory of it at all.

She had finally had enough and decided to do something. She made a wish. It was a simple wish. “I wish not to be alone anymore.”

The change was immediate. She began talking to others. People she worked with responded to her and asked her advice. Her husband paid more attention to her as did the kids. The more she interacted with everyone, the more they interacted with her. She had friends now and everywhere she went she was recognized. All for the price of a wish.

Yes, wishes always come with a cost; and they rarely let you know what that cost is until you’ve already made the wish. You see, once you are known and accessible, that is when predators enter the frame. Alice began to get calls from unknown people and services, promising her endless wonders and adventures. She was smart enough to refuse most of them. But they kept on coming. Her friends, family, and relatives all hearing about these offers chimed in trying to persuade her to take the offers and asked to be included in them. 

There were times she said yes, and adventures she had. Most involved gaining or losing money. Some others involved risky and dangerous situations. But she wasn’t alone. She always had company. But when people see the benefits of getting rewards through friendship with you, they can get greedy and want more.

It got to a point when Alice no longer wanted all of this. All she wanted was time to herself, time to be alone. She yearned for the days of the past when she had comfort and security. So she made a wish again. It was a simple wish.“I wish I was back to being alone again.” And it was granted.

But as I said before, all wishes come with a cost.

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Life goes on…

Posted on March 29, 2021 by hdh

Life goes on

The older you get, the more decisions you have to make. The older you get the more those decisions have an impact on the direction your life will go. I left my 30’s with the decision to leave my life as an apartment dweller and buy a house, found a woman to share it with and marry, and leave my classroom teaching position for a job as a district-wide computer support teacher. Included in a list of the topmost stressful things in a person’s life are buying or moving to a home, getting married, and getting a new job. By the time I had turned 40 I had hit the trifecta. 

The interesting thing about leaving the classroom environment and not being responsible for report cards, parent conferences, planning the day-to-day curriculum, and dealing with student issues, is that your stress level decreases. Until you leave the classroom, you may not even notice that you were stressed.  As a computer support teacher, I was still working with students and teachers but a lot of the pressures of being a classroom teacher were not there. Any physical issues I had had due to stress, were resolved. 

Being out of the classroom was also somewhat reaffirming for me as I got to see a lot of other teachers teach and discovered that my teaching style when I had my own class was okay and in fact, sometimes even better than others (and worse at times, but not to the extent I had imagined). This knowledge reduced most of the stress I might have unknowingly felt. 

The new teaching position I had was eliminated after 5 years and also coincided with the birth of our son, David. So it was back to the classroom for another 4 years before I was again taken out of the classroom for 3 years to be the district-wide elementary teacher of the gifted and talented. Following the demise of that position, I was back in the classroom for my final 6 years of teaching as a classroom teacher. 

When a district offers you 100% family medical insurance for life, provided you take their retirement incentive the year you are first eligible, you take it. After all, I was only 55 and hoped to be able to get work elsewhere to supplement my income. Though there was concern about leaving a steady job that had pay increases every year, it was decided that the unknown increase in insurance costs moving forward would make the retirement deal worth the risk. Besides, the age of new mandated curriculum and standards was beginning to make its way into teaching and I was getting stressed again. It was time to move on. Unlike a number of my colleagues that had retired, I chose not to go back into the district and substitute teach.

Retirement gave me the opportunity to do other work.  I spent one semester as a supervisor to student teachers through Dowling College. 

I was always into technology during my teaching career and I had just received an advanced certificate in Educational technology from Stony Brook when I was hired for a part-time job with BOCES Model Schools program as an Educational Technology Integration specialist. BOCES considered us part-timers casual employees. 

  Retirement also gave me time to explore other interests that I had been practicing while I was teaching – storytelling and writing. As a storyteller, I began getting paid jobs performing at schools and libraries. My writing took a turn from writing a journal of strictly school-related reflections to writing in all different genres and styles. My writing audience increased from just myself to the world as I created a Blog that continues today. I have posted 456 pieces of writing on my blog since I created it on December 3, 2006, and as of March 27, 2021, my writing has had 15,284 views of that writing. 

In 2013, as my BOCES work began to decrease, due to Model School’s recruitment of younger part-time teachers for lower pay, I returned to teaching in the district I had worked in for 33 years and began to substitute teach. This again gave me an opportunity to work with students and teachers and practice a lot of my storytelling. Because of my knowledge of the district, the teachers, technology, and my rapport with students I was welcomed back. One administrator even labeled me a Super-Sub. 

Of course, all this came crashing to a halt in March of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and closed everything. 

On some positive notes, reaching the age when my eligibility to take the full benefit of Social Security this past September mitigated some of my income loss and being part of the Worldwide Virtual Storytelling Guild, introduced me internationally to a world of storytellers.  

Looking back, there were many events and memories that I could have written about. Life with my wife,  Christina, and places we’ve been to and adventures we had; being part of David growing up, his leaving home for college, and meeting the woman he was destined to marry, and becoming friends with her family; and interactions with my own family, including finding and meeting a half-brother that I had in France that we only guessed existed, to mention a few. But those stories are for another day. 

At some point, Christina will retire as a scientist and I’m sure our lives will continue in a different direction, forging new paths and stories. To adapt a title from a Dr. Seuss book, “Oh the places we’ll go.” 

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The Dance

Posted on March 22, 2021 by hdh

The Dance

My favorite music has always been folk music.  I’ve played acoustic guitar since I was 13. During college, my roommate taught me how to be more proficient at playing. And after college, a colleague of mine got me interested in folk festivals and playing music in my class. I also started learning how to play other instruments like the violin/fiddle. I became a member of the Long Island Traditional Music Association (LITMA). In the 1980’s I was introduced to contra dancing. 

For those of you that have never heard of contra dancing, it’s a folk dance similar to square dancing where couples face each other in two long lines rather than in a fixed square group of 4 pairs. In contra dancing you dance in your group of only two couples for a set number of moves, then each couple moves either up or down a position, making a new set of two couples to do the same routine. This constant changing of couples continues until the music stops. If you and your partner reach the end of the line, you just reverse the direction in which you move after each routine. 

LITMA had contradances every month. I always went to them. Early in 1985, I became a member of a Contra Dance band, called Raw Bits. In the band, I would play the fiddle, mandolin, and sometimes autoharp. It was fun playing in a group, even though I wasn’t that good. I still went to contra dances even when I wasn’t playing. Sometimes I danced during breaks when I wasn’t playing a particular set. The thing about contra dances is that you are constantly changing partners. So you get to meet a lot of people. At one such contra dance, I danced once with a woman that had caught my eye while I was playing. I didn’t find out her name at the time. 

On October 5, 1985, all the members of Raw Bits had been invited to a party at the house of one of the dancers from a recent dance we had played at. I decided to go. This was right after Hurricane Gloria, and luckily by October 5th, power was restored in the area where the party was being held. Also as luck would have it, the woman that had caught my eye at that dance earlier in the year lived there. I found out that her name was Christina. We danced a lot more than once that night. As I’ve noted in other writings, I certainly fell in “like” that night, and over the next few weeks, I fell in love. Christina moved in with me in 1987 and then on October 5, 1989, as we celebrated our 5-year anniversary at a Mexican Restaurant in Port Jefferson, she surprised me and said, “Yes”. We were married the following March of 1990.

We planned our own small wedding. It was held at a friend’s house. We had a small group of string players that played music for it. As the ceremony ended, Christina and I danced to the song that we had picked out that represented the story of our meeting. It was recorded by Anne Murray ©?1980 for the movie “Urban Cowboy” (a movie which I’ve never seen) and is called Could I Have This Dance. The song was sung by the musicians that played for our wedding and when the first chorus came by, I sang it also to Christina, while we were dancing. 

If you don’t know the song, you can understand why we picked the song when you hear the lyrics. Here are the first verse and chorus. 

I’ll always remember the song they were playin’

The first time we danced and I knew

As we swayed to the music and held to each other,

I fell in love with you.

 

(Chorus)

Could I have this dance for the rest of my life?

Would you be my partner, every night?

When we’re together it feels, so right,

Could I have this dance, for the rest, of my life? **

After the first time the chorus was sung, we stopped dancing and were congratulated by all the people that attended the wedding, while the musicians continued to finish the song. 

Suffice it to say, we don’t go to contra dances anymore. But we do continue to dance in our hearts and with each other. We both have known each other for more than half of our lives, and the sentiment remains.  I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

** If you would like to see the part of our wedding with me singing here is the link: https://youtu.be/rr_X0iHTA4U

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The beat goes on…

Posted on March 18, 2021 by hdh

Let the beat go on

It was a long and winding road. They wanted to travel by car but the road was too treacherous, considering the snow and ice. So they bundled up in as much warm clothing as they had and trudged off. They would not miss the event. They had only heard about it yesterday. 

He was a writer, a paperback writer, noted for exposés on current events. She was a college history professor. She always helped him with background information for his books, as did her colleagues. The acknowledgments in all his books always gave the acknowledgments “to my wife and with a little help from my friends.” 

As they walked further and further along the path he said, “Here comes the sun. That should help.” The sun’s heat melting away some of the ice made it easier for them to walk. 

As the path came close to the wide crevice, she turned to him and said, “I want to hold your hand. I’m scared”.

Clutching her hand tightly they edged their way towards their goal. And finally, they came to the clearing. He told her to act naturally. They didn’t want to stand out. After all gathering information about this group would only work, if they blended in. 

Finally, the leader raised his hand to the sun and called out, “Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da” which was the ancient rime used to call out for the Spirit of the great Beatle. And they all waited.

The sun bore down on the collective and then as if by magic there in front of them all appeared the Great spirits. Each person there saw something different, at least that was what was reported after they had all been interviewed. Some saw the spirit of John, others the spirit of George, and still, there were more. I leave it to you to guess who else they saw. 

And as the visions passed a wave of peace fell upon the land. A feeling of joy and contentment, in addition to one of song and hope. For this is why these people meet every year. To travel the treacherous path to sunshine and goodwill. To accomplish what we always strive for. For peace and health and kindness. So that when it is accomplished we can all shout out, “Let it Be.”

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Breaking something in…Literally

Posted on March 15, 2021 by hdh

Breaking something in…Literally

Think about when you were in elementary school, junior high school, or high school. What piece of equipment did you have to purchase each year to be prepared for school? Did it last the whole year or have to be replaced before the school year ended? 

With me, it started out as briefcases. I don’t know why I felt the need to carry one. Maybe it made me look more professional as I took the bus to school. Maybe it was because I saw other students carry them. Either way I needed to have a case, with snaps on the front and a handle to carry it by. But I wasn’t a professional businessman and I wasn’t the one that paid for the said briefcase. I was 10 years old. And how does a 10-year-old treat their brand new briefcase? Certainly not like an adult. One of the problems with the briefcase was that it was hard and rigid. If my books didn’t fit well into my briefcase, well, I made sure that they did, even if I had to sit on the case to make sure it would clasp shut. In most cases watching the sides, top, and bottom bulge more than the builders created them for. 

I was also not kind to my book carrier in other ways. I would throw it down when I came home and forcibly open the lid more than it was meant to be opened. It didn’t take long before my briefcase no longer functioned and needed to be replaced. At least the contents of my briefcase, because of its rigid structure, usually remained unharmed and usable. 

As junior high school beckoned and I could no longer take a bus to school, I realized that walking the mile to school carrying a briefcase was not going to cut it. Most of the other students in my school were now carrying book bags. But that was still going to be too unwieldy for me. Being the maverick that I have always been throughout my life, I decided to use something totally different. I got myself a knapsack. It was much easier to carry on my back and was flexible enough to carry lots of irregularly shaped objects. Little did I know how much ahead of my time I was. I had created what was to be the precursor to the backpack, which now is the norm for students carrying books to school. It was also easier to carry my trumpet on band days or my lunch since my hands were free with everything else on my back. And the best thing was that my knapsack lasted for more than one year.

Of course, being in junior high school and continuing through high school, I needed a lot more individual sheets of paper and a way to organize that paper and keep my notes and writing in good shape. It was time for me to be introduced to another mandated school piece of equipment, the looseleaf notebook. You all remember those 3-ring binders or 2-ring binders (for the life of me, I have no idea why they created both kinds) with the metal rings of death and their perfectly aligned teeth, that if you were not careful would make quite an impression on a finger or two; some of which I remember having to deal with. But what I remember most was the fact that no matter how carefully I kept my looseleaf notebooks inevitably those three rings of perfect alignment managed to get misaligned and since I treated my looseleaf notebooks the same way I had treated my aforementioned briefcases, the covers which were just cardboard covered in fabric, never managed to stay intact and usually had to be replaced multiple times during the year, meaning I needed to purchase a new looseleaf notebook. Add to that the number of pagesaver reinforcements that I had to get to fix the holes in the paper that constantly tore so that I wouldn’t lose any important documents that were supposed to stay in my looseleaf. 

To this day, I still cannot use looseleaf binders, as they are called now, without overfilling them, misaligning the clasps, and inevitably having to use reinforcements to repair the holes in the papers that were torn due to my mishandling. At least the reinforcements nowadays are self-sticking and don’t have to be licked to use. 

As high school loomed, it was a much longer walk to school. Occasionally I took city buses. Book bags were the norm for all students, though I managed to keep my knapsack. It was more functional. I still had some looseleaf issues, but luckily some of my teachers required spiral notebooks. This was good because if you got the right spiral notebook, it would have the same number of holes in it that the paper did for your looseleaf notebook. There was much less tearing of holes when you use a spiral notebook. And because the number of holes matched your looseleaf, spiral notebooks fit into your looseleaf notebook. 

However with spiral notebooks, if you were like me and liked to pull on the metal spirals, they too became bent out of shape and also got caught on my clothing and other items that a pointy wire is like to do so that not only notebooks had to be replaced. And I still had problems with 3-holed papers that weren’t from my spiral notebooks, reinforcing the ripped holes and dealing with the messed up ring clamping system that never clamped completely shut, which probably caused a lot of the ripped holes. 

High school also required more books for me to carry, making the weight of the knapsack that much harder to deal with. I purchased a smaller book bag for lunches and gym clothes. It was easier with the small book bag, being much lighter than the knapsack, to carry by hand and I also wasn’t playing an instrument anymore.

What would a school year be like without having to buy some new piece of equipment you needed for school, that inevitably would be misused and break? This is a rite of passage, in my humble opinion. 

The late, Gilda Radnor, a famous comedian, said numerous times, “It’s always something.” I’m curious to see in this age of backpacks, Chromebooks, smartphones, and other electronic devices that proliferate our school culture, what are those somethings that “It ‘s always…” that have taken the place of my briefcases and notebooks? After all, without new stuff to break each year, why even bother going to school.

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