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Blogs by Leslie P Garcia
The More Things Stay the Same... 11/7/2004 9:09:01 PM
Cliches, truisms...maybe it's just called life? Remember the first make of the trucking song "Convoy?" Maybe not, unless you were listening to country and born long enough ago. I remember really liking that song, though I hated (still do, no offense to the truckers out there who keep us all in clothes and food) eighteen wheelers.
We didn't call 'em eighteen wheelers back in rural Georgia--we called them "semis." Or maybe that was the Yankee in me, and I was, as so often, out of step with my friends.
In any event, the song has been brought back by some new country artist--Paul Brandt--and there's a video now. Somehow I pictured the procession of big trucks a little differently, and I really didn't see the "minivan of long-haired friends of Jesus" (has that line been cleaned for the sake of political correctness, or do I remember the original line wrong?)the way it appears now.
Doesn't matter. What's old comes back, except for important old stuff. Like honesty. Decency. Not killing your wife for convenience. I don't know why I watch the Peterson trial and analysis. Sometimes, when I'm talking to myself about horrible marriages, though, it gives me pause. That marriage looked great. Insert cliche here about how appearances deceive.
Ahh...appearances. The stuff of modern life. Tomorrow, we're having a walk-through at school. Theoretically, of course, these visits gauge quality of instruction. At our last meeting, though, one of the directives to teachers was to make time to clean their windows. Sigh. Nothing wrong with clean windows--or even clean desks. But wouldn't spending the time on room adornment and maintenance be better spent on helping kids read?
I could stay late, of course, like I used to. Before I found out that I had health concerns. Before I had a granddaughter who's just turned one and can make me laugh even after I've adminsitered twenty-one tests to twenty-one kids one at a time, wasting hours of instructional time.
Before I started mailing out secret little brochures to colleagues telling them about my "Teachers, not Testers" bumperstickers and book bags.
But I've figured everything out. I was a protest kid of the sixties. Just didn't get it til now. Better to rebel late than never rebel. Someone said that. I'm almost sure.
