Along with all the news (most of it bad) about kids returning to classes reminds us old timers what school was like half a century ago. No kidding – things change very slowly, but all one has to do is glance, for example, into the computer’s web pages to discover how rigid classes were, how Readin’, Writen’, and ‘Rithmatic — those famous Three R’s — were taught with a severity that makes our grade schools today look like fantasy world. And, most importantly,when rules were necessary, how to use them. 

Preparations for school were largely Mom’s responsibility: new clothes, money for text books, getting the kids dressed and shiny clean, while Dad would pay the bills and, if necessary, drive the kids to first classes in the one car most families were able to afford – or need.  

Can you imagine what it was like back in the good ole days when a teacher would ask, for example, her fifth-grade class to tell a true story with a moral, with something like the following results:

Kathy raised her hand first and said, “We live on a farm with hens that lay eggs for the market. Once we were taking a basket of eggs on the front seat of the pick-up truck and we hit a big bump in the road, with the eggs flying and breaking all over everything.”

“And what was the moral?”

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

The teacher thanked her, then turned to Tammy, who raised her hand to say, “We live on a farm, too, but we raise chickens for the meat market. We had a dozen eggs once, but when they hatched, we got only ten live chickens.  And the moral of that story is don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.”

The teacher thanked her and then turned to Frankie, who was raising his hand and waving it excitedly. “You have a moral story, too, Frankie?” she asked.

“Yes, Ma’am. My daddy told me that my Aunt Karen was a flight engineer in the war and her plane got hit. She had to bail out over enemy territory and all she had was a bottle of whiskey, a machine gun and a machete.  (That’s a big knife.) Well, she drank the whiskey on the way down so it wouldn’t break, and then she landed right in the middle of a hundred enemy soldiers. She killed almost all of them before running out of bullets, then killed the rest with the machete before the blade broke off. Then she killed the last ten with her bare hands.”

“Good heavens,” said the terrified teacher. “What did your daddy tell you was the moral of that terrible story?”

“Stay the hell away from Aunt Karen when she’s been drinking.”

Awkwardly, and with some confusion, the teacher in those days would readily change the subject. “All right, children, I know you all believe in God and you pray to  Him. (OK, OK, that was then; this is now, with religion a no-no subject for fear of offending someone – anyone).  If you could,” the teacher suggested, “Can you write down what you might like to say to  say to Him?” 

What follows are samples taken from actual papers from many decades ago, when free public speech was wide open to any issues all, when the three R’s were seriously concentrated on,  when rules – plenty of them and they were all geared to raise us up to properly face the world and – let’s us face it – when innocents actually existed. 

After 10 minutes of the sounds of scribbling pencils and an occasional scrape of the eraser,  these are some of the results:

“Dear God, I didn’t think orange went with purple until I saw the sunset you made last night.”

“Dear God, I was at the zoo and saw a giraffe. Did you mean for it to look like that or was it an accident?”

“Dear God, instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don’t you just fix the ones you have now?”

“Dear God, thank you for my baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy.”

“Dear God, I want to be just like my daddy when I get big, but not bald on top and with so much hair all over the rest of him.”

“Dear God, I think about you sometimes, even when I’m not praying.”

“Dear God, it must be hard for you to love all the people in the world; there are only four in our family and I can never do it.”

“Dear God, we read in school that Thomas Edison made light, but in Sunday School we learned that you did it. So I bet he stole the idea from you.”

“Dear God, maybe Cain and Abel wouldn’t try to kill each other if they had their own room. I know it works with my brother.”

“Dear God, watch for me in church Sunday and I’ll show you my new shoes.”

…And not a single word about things digital, pending doom from a worldwide virus, wearing masks, Climate Change, worrying about buying expensive, ultimately unneeded things while being willing to throw good judgement to the wind and  follow with uncommon selfishness down one disastrous path after another.

Meanwhile there are the best of us,  missing what it was like being raised by dedicated teachers who followed rules to generate an educated, selfless society  – along with a guiding family – a mother and a father, each performing his/her familial duties – for a time when people rarely spouted hatred for anyone they were not, nor living beyond their  normal means with unnecessary luxuries that are spewing disaster into our limited atmosphere, as we spout ignorant prejudices resulting in more hatred leading to inevitable violence and then, adding to it all, picking up misguided stories from politicians who have plenty to gain from blind followers – when sensibility could override ignorance and disinformation thanks to sensible parents and teachers with honest motives. Ah, those could be the days.

Sure, we’ve always had our problems, but we lived in such wonderful innocence once, when we were really kids, and with the right guidance from the right parents and teachers,  we usually managed to grow up quite well. 

Admittedly, we tend to look back through rose-colored glasses, but the difference between today’s emphasis on selfishness, material things, and a world without special guidance for the most part – well, the contrast is still very obvious.

Perhaps, some day in the future, we’ll be able to seek guidance from a Supreme Being of our choice again.  And at the same time we’ll find through our teachers and parents that it’s true knowledge from the right sources that creates friends, not objects, with the right motives that bring most comfort and safety  to us. 

I don’t know – Does that make sense?