In fifth grade, our teacher had the rep of being hard and mean. We memorised poems, (Road Not Taken, Stopping by Woods, O Captain, My Captain and on and on) learned to recognise maybe 200 pieces of music by their main themes, with composers and dates, and sometimes spent whole days doing reproductions of Old Masters in pastels. I decided that those who said he was so awful were just jealous. I still love the poems, paintings and music. Also he read us stories, and we wrote our own poetry. One of my classmates won the Walt Whitman poetry contest, which was open to anyone. The other 4 winners were all in HS or adults!

Then in HS we had to memorise soliloquoys from Shakespeare. Now I sit in awe as daughter Wavestar and her friends recite the first act from Romeo & Juliet (which she directed a year ago. But they weren't reciting their own parts! And Jessica knew them ALL!)

And Naemanson, I was going to bring a story to Derry. Is that OK?

Cami Su