Poor Abe
By Gordon Bloyer (07/16/03)
Abraham Lincoln never attended a government run school. Poor Abe. He never attended kindergarten and he never used finger paint. There was no school lunch program. He was poor. No handouts were available. He was mostly home schooled or should I say self-schooled. He borrowed books. There were no libraries out in the country where he lived. There was no organized football, basketball, baseball, or wrestling, where he could learn the meaning of working as a team. Poor Abe.
There were no radios, television, tape players, or CD players. No place where he could listen to ''his'' music. (Have you noticed today, when our papers profile our student athletes they always have a place for ''their'' music? This is supposed to indicate how important ''their'' music is to today’s students.) Poor Abe. How could he study without ''his'' music?
Abe had no telephone. How could he survive? He could not keep in contact moment by moment with his friends and their pithy conversations about ''their'' music. I forgot, Abe didn’t have any friends because there were no government run schools to provide him with the socialization process so important to his success. Poor Abe.
Children have it so much tougher today. Drug dealers and all those bad choices they are confronted with. Who wears better sneakers? Why does Buffy get to go to the concert and I can’t go? They have to take tests to prove they learned something. Oh, how icky. The school won’t let me carry my boombox in the hall.
The pain of it all.
Abe didn’t have hot and cold running water, he didn’t have central air or heat, he didn’t have indoor plumbing, he had no refrigerator, he did not have a store on the corner where he could buy food, he had to cut firewood, he had to hunt for food, he had to plow the fields, and he had to entertain himself. He had to know how to handle a gun for protection from wild animals. Abe had it easy.
Abe had no health insurance and no school clinic. How did he make it? He had no free milk program and no school lunch and no summer lunch program. He had no union teachers or a bevy of administrators to look out for him. He never learned the ''new math.'' He didn’t have a tattoo or nose ring and didn’t color his hair green. Poor Abe.
When Abe did go to school, he had to walk. There were no cars. What, no car and no stereo; he was doomed. He could not listen to ''his'' music and travel with his friends? Poor Abe.
Abe Lincoln was sure to fail and be a nobody. Without government help and government schools, no one can succeed. I’m sorry I got it wrong. Abe went on to become a lawyer and the President of the United States. Poor Abe.
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