I'm thinking about buying a copy of "The Little Prince," as it's a book that comes up all the time in my own little zeitgeist. I've never read it, you see. I did not go to that kind of school. I went to a pretty darned crappy public school system, only this was before anyone went around grading school systems. At the time of my enrollment, it was simply enough to not be "bussed" and to not be in an "urban" area. All the rest was just details.
I think it was in the 1980's when people woke up and realized that there was more to gauging school performance than counting the number of black kids. So how did I know that my school was "failing." Well, at least failing me? Let's start with grade 3. As good as any I suppose. It was this grade in which we were given our first standardized tests. Just so you know, I rock the whole fill in the bubble thing. So, in 3rd grade there came a day when some administrative-type person came into my classroom and called me and my neighbor out to the hall. We were sort of told, but not really told, that we had scored so well on the bubble-filling test that we were being moved to a new reading group. In my memory, at least, we were right then and there marched up to the end of the hall to a utopian classroom where there were books, books everywhere and a smiling woman named Mrs. Duncan. With a name like that how could she not be better than the squat crabby woman I'd had previously? That trollish lady only ever complained to my mother that I talked too much. Yeah, yeah. It's who I am, lady.
But my point about 3rd grade is really that it did not make a damned bit of difference. Identified as smart in 3rd grade. Hooray! By 4th grade my neighbor and I were redistricted out to a smaller school. One without the "gifted and talented" program for which we had so recently proven our qualification. No amount of calling and complaining or offering to drive me between schools for the meeting of this esteemed group could overcome the system's desire to just not care.
And so, let's move on to 6th grade. My teacher that year was a pig, I knew it then and I know it now. He drove a motorcycle and was a lifeguard in the summer. He was cool. And he wanted us to think so. And, there, folks, we have the nub of the problem. I did not think he was cool. It never occurred to me to think about a teacher in terms of his societal influence or ability to get chicks. And so, when he offered me the chance, the chance! to rinse his coffee cup out in the girls room in exchange for some tickets that were part of some PTA money-making flea market type scheme, well, I declined.
And that sealed my fate. I simply had not understood that this man, this vain man, had the power vested in him to choose the "track" to I would be attached in middle school. So, despite my fill-in-the-bubbles prowess, I was placed in the second tier. He told my mother that I was immature or something. I was 10. I did not yet know I had to kiss his ass. Construing that as lack of maturity is perhaps valid, but not terribly relevant.
But, before you can accuse me of going on too monotonously in the "woe was my public education" direction, I'll just cut it short skip to 10th grade. The curriculum stated that we read A Tale of Two Cities that year. I had Mr. Donnelley as a teacher and I should have known something was amiss when I had to go over to a whole other wing of the school for this class - the wing where they had the rooms with typewriters for the "general" and "business studies" students. It's important to note that I also really was into Van Halen that year and someone Mr Donnelley's class had an actual photograph of Eddie, taken by her sister. Not a print, not cut from a magazine, but a photo. Real. I nearly died. And so it was not a total waste, that class...
Anyway, Mr. Donnelley was a bit, um, distracted in general. There were rumors that he was a drunk. I had not too much reference for "drunk," but I guess if you forced me to draw a parallel between him and my Uncle Billy I'd see some similarities in sloppy dress, lurching walk, and slurring of speech. But, on to the Dickens! We cracked our textbooks right then and there, so exciting! We were to all read the first page silently. And, as you may know, that first page is a doozy. So much to think about! Let's discuss!
Or, no, really...let's all close our books as I turn out the lights so we can watch the movie.
Yes, in case I lost you there - we read the first page and then watched the movie. AP English here I come?!?
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Last week I was listening to the radio on the way to work and a very smart man was talking about asteroids. He illustrated his point by talking about an asteroid named Apophis that was on track to glance the Earth in 2029. Apparently, at that time it would not hit us, but it could, just maybe could, be impacted by our gravity just enough to make it swing back around in 2036 and whack the hell out of us. For me, the story was relatable because I had just, the evening before, mentioned the year 2029 to my father. My father has lymphoma. For the second time. And we were all waiting and waiting for it to be graded and to find out a treatment plan. By way of being supportive, I reminded my father of what I had told him the first time he was diagnosed, in 2007 when my daughter was 9 months old - that I needed him to hang on to see her graduate from Harvard. We'd picked out her dorm from the window of the hospital where she was born. She had come into this world despite so many reasons why she shouldn't. And she was fine. The nurses called her "the miracle baby" but I shut my laptop to the page explaining what it was she'd had and what it was that was supposed to have become of her.
So we picked out her dorm and said, "why not, this child who is not supposed to be here, why not be the best of the best of the best?"
And my father recovered. He spent the 9th through 13th months of my child's life too sick to enjoy her. He had lost his mother that year, and his hope. But he recovered and called 2007 "a very bad year - except for Miss M." Miss M he calls her, because he does not like her given name. But, even not named Elizabeth, as he'd desired, she had his heart. She is not a demonstrative child, she is not going to run into your arms - mine, yes, yours, no. If she likes you she will smile and let her hair fall over one eye. She will giggle if you (intentionally) do bad math or use the wrong word or ask her if she has seen your giraffe, since it was just here a minute ago... She will correct you and think you are so, so silly. A serious girl who likes to giggle. There is such a thing.
And so last week I reminded my father of his expected attendance in Harvard Yard in May of 2029.
The astromomer, by the way, did have a point about Apophis. He went on to tell us out there in radioland that they had tightened up their predictions and it was not going to happen. My daughter was not going to graduate from Harvard under the spectre of the coming apocalypse 7 years hence. But, Apophis, he said, was the canary in the coal mine. It warned us that there were others, other asteroids that would hit Earth. But we are not dinosaurs, he said. By then we, the people of Earth, will have ways to redirect any rocks headed our way. The B612 Foundation, he said, was working on it.
And, for the second time, I snapped to attention. B-612.
By the year 2029 my daughter will be 22 years old. My father will be 89. And the good, smart folks of this world, who read The Little Prince in school, likely in French, will have invented a machine to zap asteroids out of our path.
We will all live forever.
