Eleven Score and Nineteen (or, Old School Patriotism)
Terror is a wonderful aid to memory. I mostly loved eighth grade US History. On day one of the class, Mr. LaFordge introduced himself with a clever current events joke, pointing out his name should be easy to remember, since it contained (and after writing it on the board, he underlined) "Ford," the name of our brand new (he'd been sworn in, following Nixon's resignation, just two weeks earlier) President. He then passed out our brand new textbooks, and I had the delightful experience of being the first person to crack mine open, luxuriating in the smell of virgin paper and ink. It was going to be a wonderful year, I thought. That feeling lasted--in this class, anyway--until we wrapped up the unit on the Revolutionary War, and began learning about the Constitution. The final exam on this unit was to be an oral recitation, from memory, in front of the entire class, of the Preamble. Yes, that's the same text that Oprah Winfrey's character recites at...