Dear Old Golden Rule Days

I love people and I don't care how young or old they are; everyone has a story and a point of view to be considered.

F'rinstance, one of my young young friends had this to say on FB the other morning: "The whole school routine pisses me off."

Yes, it tends to do that, and then once the middle school routine is over, the high school routine mars your life and then college - what you can remember of it - will be years of doing this and doing that, as you're told, preferably on time.

And then, your education solidly completed, you are prepared to enter the workforce and fit into other routines.

With the benefit of hindsight, we get older and realize that the nonsense of having to be in our seats at a certain time, having to do book reports and Science Fair projects and charts showing the progress of American Civilization as we expanded westward is not so much nonsense, really, as it is good training for having a job and having to produce a cover sheet for a TPS report or arrest a crook or put out a fire or give someone a flu shot or defend the crook that someone arrested.

No one ever asked me to speak at a high school commencement, least of all my own high school, which made my attendance at the graduation exercises optional, but if it ever happens, I will make sure to point out that it's not the being in your seat on time or making a plaster volcano or naming the presidents in order that makes your education worthwhile.

It's the learning how to do those things that counts.

But if any kid ever asks me the value of solving a quadratic equation, I'd have to say there is none.