High School Days

When I was in high school an average week went like this:

Skip gym class, go to local college, read Voltaire–but not Candide, instead, his Philosophical Dictionary–liking especially:

“A big library has this in it of good, that it dismays those who look at it. Two hundred thousand volumes discourage a man tempted to print; but unfortunately he at once says to himself: “People do not read all those books, and they may read mine.” He compares himself to a drop of water who complains of being lost in the ocean and ignored: a genius had pity on it; he caused it to be swallowed by an oyster; it became the most beautiful pearl in the Orient…”

2. Skip gym class, go to draft board, show blind letter from doctor. Declare to hedge hog corporal blind people might conceivably work in tunnels. Corporal tells him to go screw himself.

3. Skip gym class, drink stolen bottle of champagne. Take nap in abandoned bath tub in woods.

4. Skip gym class, go to local college, read Ed Sanders, liking especially “Poems From Jail”.

5. Skip entire school day. Stay sober but still take nap in abandoned bath tub.

Ah Wordsworth:

“Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind;

In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be…”