the rejoiner to a simple "no." Mom never worried about having a "mean old lady" reputation among her children's friends, especially if it saved them from performing undesirable actions. Packing an excuse like "Mom" was ammunition so powerful that I never felt alone when faced with a difficult situation; if I could not handle it, "we" could! By sixth grade I had accepted the fact that, as one of the tallest students, I would always be seated at the back of the class and stand at the end of the gym line. Each year, I remember wishing that the lines and rows would, for once, be arranged alphabetically, allowing me a change of scenery from the backs of people's heads. I never had the chance. The policy remained the same and the students grew in height...but so did I. My last year of grade school was also a year through which I spent pleasant noon hours, lunching at the home of a lady whose family attended our church. I shared lunch with Vera's youngest son, Todd, and two other boys whose names no longer exist in my memory. Vera was great. She rarely smiled, yet she had a terrific sense of humor which fell somewhere between "dry" and "sarcastic." Her laughter was a reward in itself, for it was easy and genuine. Within her sober face was more humor than most people could fathom because she had the ability to see humor in life. Sixth grade left in me a good impression of my early school years...I remembered the good and the bad, for the two elements were inseparable. I thought of the holidays, from Halloween's dress-up parade followed by a night of trick-or-treating, to Valentine's Day parties, and Yuletide paper chains. I reflected upon the fall carnivals and ice cream socials, the frantic chaos of recess and the joy of art projects. I smiled at the science jingle which, through the attacks of several boys and myself, suffered a comical change of wording to "The sun is a mass of undigested GAS, a gigantic nuclear TOILET..." and perhaps as a sort of revenge for so dissecting the lyrics of the educational song, I encountered my first migraine headache in science class, during the middle of a test. I thought of the teachers, and the quiet spoken janitor, Mr. Ed, who faithfully polished the halls to a sheen and silently cleaned the floor after someone threw up. I considered the principal who was feared, yet respected, for his ability to control the school in an orderly fashion. He had the type of stern glance which turned one's lunch into a mass of lead; a rumor that he possessed a spanking machine in his office persisted in my mind until the second grade. I never sought to disturb him; thus, when I was instructed to report to his office, my throat became the victim of muscular strangulation. Once stationed before his desk, the principal reprimanded me concerning a book which had disappeared from my desk. The librarian said it was still missing; if it was not returned I would be obliged to pay for it.