{"id":1663,"date":"2019-03-29T10:30:57","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T14:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=1663"},"modified":"2019-03-29T10:32:43","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T14:32:43","slug":"second-grade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2019\/03\/29\/second-grade\/","title":{"rendered":"Second Grade"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Second Grade&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I was in Miss Meyer\u2019s second grade class at the \u201cannex\u201d to Clifton Elementary School.&nbsp;&nbsp;My Mom was 5\u20194\u201d and my Dad was too (at least so he claimed) so I definitely wasn\u2019t the biggest kid in the class, but it wouldn\u2019t have mattered out on the playground anyway.&nbsp;&nbsp;The playground belonged to \u201cMarshall.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;At the time, I thought Marshall was a fourteen year-old fourth grader (remember I was seven) though he probably was closer to eleven.&nbsp;&nbsp;But he was huge, and he was strong, and he wanted my milk money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And he took it, daily, for weeks.&nbsp;&nbsp;Standing up to him wasn\u2019t really an option, he would just push me down and take it anyway.&nbsp;My friends didn\u2019t like it, but there was little they could do; if they protested, Marshall would take their milk money too.&nbsp;&nbsp;He ruled the playground like a fiefdom of the Cincinnati Public Schools; I can\u2019t remember the Principal\u2019s name, but I absolutely remember Marshall\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Finally my parents intervened with the school, and Marshall went away.\u00a0\u00a0We kids thought he went to juvenile prison (isn\u2019t that what they do with robbers?) but I really don\u2019t know what happened.\u00a0\u00a0Marshall was gone, and my daily donation to his fiefdom was over.\u00a0I remember my Dad taking me in the backyard and showing my some boxing moves; that\u2019s how he handled the kids that bullied him for having a German last name after World War I.\u00a0\u00a0But I\u2019m glad I didn\u2019t punch Marshall, he\u2019d have slain me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Second grade:&nbsp;&nbsp;a time when things were simple, and the monsters were fourteen.&nbsp;&nbsp;When you called your friends \u201cpencil necks\u201d and \u201cdumb butts,\u201d or maybe one of the \u201cmagic words\u201d you heard the older kids use in the woods behind the house when they saw two dogs locked in love.&nbsp; It was a time when there was no difference between common sense and \u201capparent\u201d sense.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>\u201cIf there was such a food crisis in China, why didn\u2019t they go to a different grocery store?\u201d&nbsp;<\/li><li>\u201cOf course you couldn\u2019t send a space ship to the sun during the day, you had to land at night.\u201d&nbsp;<\/li><li>\u201cAll of those famous explorers who froze getting to the North and South Poles should have gone in the summer.\u201d<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Second grade in Miss Meyer\u2019s class was a learning time for me.&nbsp;&nbsp;I learned that left-handed people didn\u2019t write correctly, and that sometimes you got knocked down for your lunch money.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And I learned that sometimes your heroes get shot in a limousine in Dallas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But as I grew up, I learned that what seemed logical to second graders isn\u2019t really logical at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So it is always with some surprise that I listen to our current President of the United States, speaking last night at a rally in Grand Rapids.&nbsp;&nbsp;I have to reach back fifty-seven years to the Clifton School Annex playground and Miss Meyer\u2019s room to understand what he is saying.&nbsp;&nbsp;To hear him call Congressman Adam Schiff, Democratic Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, \u201cpencil necked\u201d and \u201cnot a long ball hitter\u201d (not a golfer myself, my guess is that is some vague sexual reference) puts me back playing four-square in the sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think of those watching as like my friends in the circle around Marshall and me, wanting to do something to stop him, but knowing if they act, then Trump would turn on them, and take their \u201cmilk money.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I hear that same second grade \u201capparent logic\u201d we used:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>\u201cYou\u2019d be doing wind, windmills, whirr.&nbsp;&nbsp;And if it doesn\u2019t blow you can forget about television for that night. \u2018Darling I want to watch television. \u2018I\u2019m sorry, the wind isn\u2019t blowing.\u2019 I know a lot about wind.\u201d (Trump, Rally in Grand Rapids 3\/28\/19)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s too bad they haven\u2019t evented some kind of energy storage devices, maybe that could retain the power developed by the windmill, to use when the wind isn\u2019t blowing, then recharge when it is.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I bet a fourth grader could figure it out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Second Grade&nbsp; I was in Miss Meyer\u2019s second grade class at the \u201cannex\u201d to Clifton Elementary School.&nbsp;&nbsp;My Mom was 5\u20194\u201d and my Dad was too (at least so he claimed) so I definitely wasn\u2019t the biggest kid in the class, but it wouldn\u2019t have mattered out on the playground anyway.&nbsp;&nbsp;The playground belonged to \u201cMarshall.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;At the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2019\/03\/29\/second-grade\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Second Grade&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.7 - 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