“I don’t mind dying. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.“
I just came across this quote and it made me laugh loudly. I could hear the slight stutter and see the raised eyebrows over the thick black glasses.
On a completely different but vaguely connected note here is something else that made me laugh when I came across it in my papers from my work this summer.
Summer Noses
It was a summer made out of noses
It rained candy and sunshined jello
and rainbowed suckers.
We could climb a ladder and eat a rainbow.
How about if the grass was made out of eyelashes.
What if it was Fall hair?
What if our houses where big, big, big eyeballs?
What if the beaches where big giant marshmallows?
I took dictation during a brainstorming session during snack one day in June. I read it back and let the kids come up with more ideas and take ones out they didn’t like. They approved the final wording. Out of this was born our Giant Game in which I would ask them where they wanted to play after snack, and each child would say ” I want to go to the giant, giant . . . giant climbing trees” or ” field” or “goat pen” or wherever they wanted to go. There would of course be 5 to 10 “giant”s where the dots are. They all seemed to enjoy the game immensely and I got the information to plan their day. When working with children I find that understanding a game is not always crucial to the outcome, but allowing the children to take control in ways that they enjoy makes children so much more cooperative about the things that I have to insist on like safety issues. Even though I found the game repetitive and tiresome, I could see the joy of mastering timing and surprise. Maybe Woody Allen or Groucho Marx started this way. Anyway, they got a lotta laughs, and when someone really nailed their line, they were rewarded with a nasal milk fountain. When the milk comes out of the nose, that’s when you know you’re working the room.
Myriad Ways 