Friends and Associates
With any luck, Monday was my last day substitute teaching! Since I had world history classes at HHS, I asked them what they knew about the former US President who died over the weekend. They said Ronald Reagan was

• a Great Man
  
• president a long time ago
  
• responsible for ending the Cold War
  
• President in the 80s
  
• a humanitarian
  
• governor of California
  
• President of the Screen Actors Guild
  
• an actor during the . . . 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s
  
• getting too much media attention
  

As you can see, the only problematic facts were how long ago he appeared on the silver screen (those are a couple of students' guesses) and how long ago the 1980s were. "Humanitarian" is odd; I didn't get to the bottom of that one. But the near choruses of "he was a great man" bowled me over. I have talked to various folks about why working class (and "lower"?) black -- and a few white -- kids would think that Reagan was a great man, and fingers were pointed at the media. These teens are good at parroting what they heard over the weekend, on TV and the radio. Probably, their opinions do not reflect political discussions of the grown ups in their homes.

Other than that, the kids had busy work, er a class evaluation to complete. Since they had 50-minute classes, I let them do whatever they wanted to do when they were done. Many had yearbooks. I recall the drapes the photogrpaher gave us young women so we all appear to be wearing velvet dresses. But, did the young men of Midlo High wear tuxes? The seniors of H High sure looked sharp in theirs. The ritual of passing yearbooks around for signatures has not changed much. A couple of kids (all girls?) who didn't have yearbooks had made autograph books out of a couple of pieces of paper. One young woman's cover page read "Friends and Associates." I think it was later, though, that I overheard this conversation:
1: "Who's signing mine?"
2: "Is it a real one?"
1 not sheepishly: No.

Two final notes on the day:
One girl dressed 80s a-go-go (sorry, mixed metaphor). How excited am I that those grubby plastic and rubber bangle bracelets are back in!
And, I heard "babydaddy" used in context, often. For example, "my cousin's babydaddy went to that school."

After learning so much, I will treasure this experience always.

Capital City weather: on the brink of a thunderstorm -- breathlessly still, dark.