Be Nice

When I was in elementary school when I grew up I wanted to be...Nice. Yes, nice. Not a lawyer, teacher(well maybe), not a weather forecaster just nice. Because I had run into so many people who in my young estimation were complete tools, I thought I should be basic in my wish for the future and pray to not be a meanie!

In those days the vast majority of adults in my world were teachers and a few of them were soo great. Ms. Watkins in kindergarten and Mrs. Mann in 4th were two of my favorites. Mrs. Jones in 2nd grade was completely unreasonable and took my Princess Leia doll when she caught me playing with it in class. What tha' junk??!!! She could have been nice about the whole thing. Mrs. Crockett in the 3rd grade was hilarous. She would stomp on your Hot Wheels if she caught you playing with them during class but I still liked her. Maybe I learned my lesson in 2nd grade or maybe it was the look of agony on those boys faces but I respected her for doing it. You can be a disiplinarian and a nice person at the same time and she knew how to walk that fine line.

Looking back as an adult I see that it wasn't that some of them were good with kids, well they were, but even more important they were just good. I am sure they had loads of friends outside of the job, laughed a lot, donated to charity when they could and didn't litter. That was who I wanted to be. And thank God, that is who I am