Good Old Days Weren't Necessarily Smart Old Ways, Compared with THESE Daze

Here 'tis almost time for school to start again, and I haven't even mentioned Vincent's blue-ribbon performance in his school's science fair right before the summer break.
Actually, I mention it not so much to brag, AGAIN, as to point out the contrast between the "good old days" and now. I don't think our school even HAD a science fair when granddad was a lad. But if it had taken a pause from the hectic pace of the '50s for a scientific competition, I'm sure it would have been only for the upper grades.
When I was in first grade, the closest I came to anything blue was learning that it was one of the colors in my eight-color Crayon box.
All we were learning was colors and one-syllable words, such as red, blue, sun, etc. Some of us had trouble even nailing down the colors. One of my classmates had been held back the year before because he had covered everything brown his first time through.
As for learning the words, that was after we had spent hour after hour meticulously drawing the alphabet on those tablets with big spaces and dotted lines to divide small letters from caps. We didn't even start reading until well into the second grade, after our "phonics" books arrived. (I was sooooooooo disappointed when S'ter handed me mine. For MONTHS, she had been promising that great things would happen when those tomes came in. Unfortunately, I thought she was saying "comics," and I couldn't wait. Boy, THAT was a rude awakening.)
Of course, when we did start reading, it was basic Dick and Jane and Spot stuff.
"See Spot run."
"Run Spot, run."
"Dick, see Spot run."
"Spot, run to Jane."
"Jane, what is the vertical co-efficient of the cosign of the hypotenuse …"
Oh, for a minute there, I lapsed into my eighth-grade reading mode.
In short, when I was in first grade, there's no way I could have presented a science exhibit like Vincent did. Hell, all I had was a round scissors and the eight crayons because we couldn't afford the box of 24, which was the top of the line in those days, let alone the 16 pack.
Granted, his parents helped a tad, but he did MOST of the work himself. MUCH of Melissa's work was having her son write the narrative on his display cards, from scratch, when he made a mistake. None of the typewritten ones so many others featured. And none of the Run Spot Run stuff to explain the dynamics of the contents of a Lucky Charms box.
He calculated the number of each design of the charms, and chronicled them. And I daresay that his display rivaled anything I did even in the eighth grade.
The REAL clincher? He didn’t even have to do it. It was an optional assignment. The kid’s setting the bar high.
We’re lucky to have that charmer around, I’d say.

General Mills has added some snap, crackle and pop (to use a rival’s slogan) since this FIRST Lucky Charms commercial in black and white, eh?



I’ll close with my favorite song involving luck, Frank Sinatra’s “Luck Be a Lady Tonight.” I couldn’t find one with Old Blue Eyes himself singing it, so we’ll have to settle for the water fountain show at the Bellagio.