Heat in the classroom until well educated or well done

By Doug Page | Monday, September 22, 2008, 03:48 PM

It was as if we all took a collective sigh.

The rain, as it should in late summer, was soft and warm. We and the soil deserved this.

Nearly a month had passed without a measurable rain. As soon as the school doors opened, the temperatures soared.

The early September rain refreshed the lawns, gardens and crops without scouring the ditches. A dust-settler rather than a frog-drowner.

It was good for the soil and the soul.

Likewise, the traditional start-of-school heat wave occasioned a knowing grin on a parent or two dropping off the summer-tanned heathens at the school door.

The heathens have spent the summer in frolicking enjoyment. They have had the time of their young lives.

And when a child knows he or she has the world on a downhill pull, they are quick to lord it over their parents. To the child’s eye, parents are dull drones unable to get out of the working-five-days-a-week rut.

There are times, gentle reader, when even the most sainted parent wants to show those snot-nosed offspring. To rip aside the curtain of childhood fantasy and represent the world as it is.

Tough, cold, brutal.

A struggle to get through on the weekends, much less the five days a week working for the man.

That, however, would crush their poor hearts and stunt their fledgling souls. Instead, we feed them brief glimpses of their lives ahead. Starting with the opening of school.

It used to be that schools around here were not air-conditioned. Parents and school administrators watched the weather, waiting for the precise moment to open school — when it would be the hottest for the little darlings.

Teachers were considered martyrs. Not only did they have to whip the heathens into line, they also had to face the oven-like temperatures of classrooms.

Now the state is helping districts building new schools. Part of the deal is the new schools need air-conditioning.

Did someone in the state Legislature not get the memo?

My sole conclusion is whoever is in charge must have gone to a ritzy, air-conditioned school.

Pa-shaw, I say.

We need to toughen up these heathens. Knock the stars out of their eyes. Bring them to the one true knowledge.

Children, we spare you many of life’s slings and arrows early on. We do this so you may become educated.

We want you to be well-educated.

We want you to find great jobs.

And most of all we want those jobs to pay you gobs of money. That way, you will pay gobs of money into Social Security to support us in the manner to which we have become accustomed.

That’s what those hot classrooms are all about: toughening you youngsters up to handle the truth.

Your grandparents sweated in those classrooms. Your parents sweated in those classrooms.

Now it’s your turn.

Hang in there long enough and inculcate another generation, and it might just be your turn for Social Security.

Until then, enjoy the late summer rains when you grow up.

Hope you figure out a substitute for the hot classrooms.

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