"Grandpa?"
"Yes, dear."
"Tell me how it was again!"
"How what was?"
"Going to school!"
"What?"
"When you were a kid."
"I've told you!"
"Again!"
"I'm beginning to think you don't believe me."
:-#
"Is it your mother who looks at you like that?"
"Pick me up!"
"All right! Come here! My! You're eating well... Get settled... OK? I started school in California before I was five years old. In kindergarten, our teacher sat at the piano every morning and sang to us. School was everything--"
"What about church?"
"You asked me about school--"
:-#
"Young lady, you wouldn't like it if I looked at you like that... Anyway... When I was going to school, the country decided we needed all the smart people we could get. They spent lots and lots of money on schools. Smart, kind, talented, patient people read to us and taught us math and science. People cooked for us and kept the buildings clean and safe. They showed us movies and took us to the beautiful, wondrous places we could get to by bus. There was a nurse to take care of us if we were sick and--"
"And they wasn't packin'?"
"Weren't. Packing."
"And they weren't packing?"
"No. They were not."
"And nobody got shot?"
"Nobody."
"Damn!"
"Language, young lady!"
"What happened?"
"Everyone got scared."
"Why?"
"That's a subject for another time, dear. Right now, we've got to get started. What shall we sing this morning?"
:-#