A Vignette Starring the Future Victorian

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic tonight, my friends. Won't you come along for the ride on Val's trip to yesteryear?

C'mon! It'll be fun. We might stop for ice cream. Those of you who don't call "SHOTGUN!" soon enough can take turns picking the radio station. If anybody gets too tired from standing on the hump in the back-seat floor, he can stretch out up there on that flat area under the back windshield. No bobbing dog-heads in Val's car. The front-seat passengers will be protected by Val flinging out her arm upon sudden stops. But you back-seaters are on your own. And no touching each other or staring or sticking out tongues or clicking the little silver ashtray lids on the armrests.

Whew! Here we go. Tonight we're dropping in on third-grade Val, an earnest little gal, a teacher-pleaser. Val is sitting in the back desk of the row by the windows. Her desk it the one-piece metal flip-top kind, with a wooden lid, and the wooden chair attached that swivels wonderfully when one is bored. It has a built-in metal pencil tray if you lift the lid just slightly. That pencil tray will come in handy when the class moves to the new building mid-year. The new building Val can see out the window, where she doesn't know there will be a fantastic big communal sink like a half-circle shower, activated by tiny feet on a circle of hose-looking stuff, with soap dispensers that put out powdery pink soap, which can be held under the sprinkling water and packed into soap balls that will rest just right on that in-desk metal pencil tray, laying in wait for somebody, perhaps a teacher, to inspect the desk, think, "Oh! Candy!" and pop one into her mouth. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. This scenario is not yet even a blip on Val's radar.

There sits our Val. At the back of the row because she can be trusted. Not a rabble-rouser. She can be used as a divider in the great separation effort against talkers and ne'er-do-wells. She pays attention. She's always prepared. Even today. Even though she has just returned to school after an unfortunate event. Her left arm bears the knuckle-to-armpit cast of a victim of a greenstick fracture of the ulna, suffered in a roller-skating accident on her next-door grandpa's sidewalk. Val has her cast plopped on the desk. No pretty pink cast like modern kids. No envelope-shaped canvas sling with adjustable straps. Val has what might be compared to a white tea towel, folded each morning by her mom, into a big triangle with the pointy ends tied behind her neck, as her sling. Yet she is not concerned with her arm. The social studies lesson is in session!

Social studies is not Val's favorite subject. But she is, after all, a teacher-pleaser. So she's ready to jump in with an answer. Her right arm can still raise, by cracky! But this is a question Val does not know. "Who was the 13th President of the United States?" A crease forms between Val's eyebrows, causing her silvery-pink-framed cat's eye glasses to slip a tiny bit down her nose. The teacher looks sadly around the room. No hands are waving. She tries another tactic. "I'll give you his first name: Millard."

Val wracks her brain. Digs deep. She knows she knows this. She knows she's heard that name. At home. At her grandpa's house, or at his cabin on the St. Francis River. What was it? Millard...Millard...Val's good right arm shoots into the air. She wiggles her hand, just in case the teacher hasn't noticed.

"Yes, Val? Do you know? Our thirteenth President was Millard...Millard..."

Val tucks her foot up under her butt to sit a bit higher in her chair, and announces proudly,

HIGH LIFE!"

I see that many of you have fallen asleep on the ride home. My daddy will carry you from the car to your bed. Nighty night. Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite.