Correspondence

[madamesilverspurs]

My elementary school days were way back in the 1950s. I can still hear the sound of the wall-mounted pencil sharpener, can still smell the chalk dust, can still feel the roughened edges of the round inkwell hole in the desktop. To this day the sound of certain bells makes me want to run outside for recess. In second grade we added and subtracted, read out loud, and learned to stumble through the Pledge of Allegiance with the new words added.

And we had spelling tests. My mother, bless her, still cherishes one of mine. It's a piece of lined paper, a half-sheet cut lengthwise, yellowed now with a bit of time. My teacher, Mrs. Parham, delighted in giving it to Mom at one of those parent-teacher conferences. It seems she felt it would be unfair to give me a lesser grade for having misspelled one of the words - egg. After all, given her very pronounced southern accent, I just wrote what I heard - aig. So, I got a point for thinking.

Well, we've apparently come a long way, baby. A friend just announced, with justifiable pride, that her second-grader had won his spelling bee with the word correspondence. THAT is simply amazing.

Here's to his teacher. Here's to ALL teachers.

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