"Be nice to Joey."

In my younger days, I was a bilingual substitute teacher's aide. There was a five month stretch in which I worked in a 5th grade classroom. I spent most of my time with the Spanish speaking students, but I occasionally helped out with the rest of the class. One of these times was during a spelling test. To set up this story, I must first tell you about Joey. Joey was the unfortunate scapegoat of that class, the butt of all those 5th grade jokes. No reason for that, I think every class has one of those kids . . . the kid who on whom all the other little 5th graders take out all their aggresion and stupid little 5th grade jokes. (Hence, the oft-used phrase, "Be nice to Joey.") Now I will tell you about Johnny. Johnny was a good kid, a really neat kid, bright, clever, and well-dressed. He mostly hung around other bright, clever, and well-dressed kids. (Interestingly, that group of bright, clever and well-dressed kids were all Mormons.) They were my favorite bunch of kids, kids who really made me laugh with their wit, and surprised me with their maturity.
I was helping the class at large with a spelling test, and the word was "brainstorm". Joey asked what that meant, and the teacher explained that it was like having a storm in your brain, but instead of raindrops falling down, ideas fell down. Johnny added that when Joey has a brainstorm, "it only sprinkles." Clever for a 5th grader. Clever for a college graduate. It still makes me laugh.



Another story I remember from those days happened when I was helping out in a special ed. class. (Again, the players were Mormons.) There was a very cute and sweet little boy named Nathan. It was lunchtime on this particularly rainy day, and Nathan opened his lunchbag. A nice sandwich, an apple, a juicebox and a note. "Rain, rain, go away, little Nathan wants to play." I asked Nathan who wrote the little note. His brother had written it for him. It was so sweet!


All these Mormon kid stories remind me that I wanted to share with you all that my friend and I went to see Blades of Glory last night. Funny, but rather crude.