Hearts and Flowers

I’m one of a group of women who were asked to teach a fifth-and-sixth grade girls class on Wednesday nights. We each were to take a turn, and last week was mine. My topic? “Being Cool and Popular.”

After recovering from the emotional trauma of recalling now not cool and popular I was, I began to plan my lesson. I decided to begin by getting them to define “popular” for me, to give me some characteristics of popular people.

Good looking. Lots of friends. Good at sports. Likes to be the center of attention. Great clothes. Has all the up-to-date gadgets. Mean sometimes. Has a cool car.

So far so good. I write these on the board.

Then one girl shyly says, “They have good handwriting.”

What? I pause for a minute, wondering what to do with this seemingly random contribution.

Then I remember. Way back before cool cars or football or iphones even mattered. I remembered girls who crossed their t’s at a jaunty angle, who looped the end of letters just so, who dotted i’s with hearts and flowers while the rest of us valiantly attempted to do a passable imitation of their artistic embellishments on the standard cursive script that marched around the room on top of the blackboard.

Boy, those were the days.