Steven Richard Newsletter

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IN THIS ISSUE: Back to School

Welcome to our 50th anniversary “back to school” segment. Time flies! Below, we’ve compiled the 10 most important pieces of “back to school” advice we’ve dispensed during this short half-century.

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NEWSLETTER BACK TO SCHOOL ITEMS

1. When a cat speaks, that is not going to be written as “meow” anymore, but as “maeiou,” which uses all of the vowels and is clearly a superior and more fun spelling
2. When I was a kid we all had TRAPPER KEEPERS, we loved our TRAPPER KEEPERS! And getting one was a big and fun and important part of going back to school, an opportunity to organize all of my classes into sections in my ‘KEEPER and keep all of my pens and pencils secure in my ‘KEEPER … How I wish I could have one now, but in adulthood I’ve come to hate plastic commodities with a great and terrible hatred, and so if there was a contemporary TRAPPER KEEPER it would have to be non-plastic materials and let’s face it, that would make it not work as well. Kids, childhood is short, enjoy every minute!!
3. In the North Pole, Kringle School is where they train new Santa Clauses. Santa Clauses only live for about five years because the work is so hard, it isn’t the same Santa every year, but a new one every five or so years, the old ones die and are buried in the cemetery that surrounds Kringle School
4. Some of us are not students but teachers and we always feel left out of these lists because we’d like to know important stuff too, but stuff for us, not for students. “Teacher stuff,” you know? Like stirrup pants, or prunes
5. You might feel nervous on the first day of school, but there’s one person out there who is even more nervous than you, and this item is not for them
6. That classmate you’ve developed a crush on really is pretty great, don’t make up excuses for not talking to them, just go say hi. If you think they’re out of your league let me tell you, you are both in different and unrelated leagues, like baseball and football, which is perfect because those sports are active at different times of year so you’ll be able to go to one another’s games! Also the football one should quit, what a horrid sport
7. It is OK to bring your teacher an apple. Last year though one of my students brought me a plastic bag with a sliced up apple in it, which they had bought especially because it was a factory-sliced and factory-sealed product, and the student said it was “for safety,” like I guess in case I suspected they might give me a poisoned apple, and this made me incredibly, incredibly sad, and the slices were brown and old and incredibly, incredibly sad
8. The word “education” also uses all the vowels
9. Every year we’ve done this list, number 9 just says “AND NUMBER TEN IS”
10. When I was a kid I always idolized older kids who were nice to younger kids, and when I got to be an older kid I tried to be nice to younger kids, but they were so hard to notice or find, like they didn’t even really seem to be there

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