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Mr. Greymule,
I do remember 40 years back. Forty years ago tomorrow I celebrated my eighth birthday. Let's see what I remember about that time and since.
I remember the male teachers of 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. They taught us how to say "Yes, sir" and "No, sir". Be sure we did. To forget was to receive lashes with a yardstick across our buttocks, hands, or (if you were a boy) at the side of the knee with legs about a yard apart.
I remember one of these teachers making fun of my non-Anglo-Saxon name. Nevermind that we had anglicized the pronunciation to make it easier for Americans to pronounce. (One of the vowel sounds doesn't exist in the English language.)
I remember my brother changing the spelling of his first name under my mother's instructions so that he would no longer be punished for spelling it "wrong".
I remember the scandal when the brother of one of the girls on my eighth grade basketball team showed up at our game with hair to his shoulders.
I remember saying that he worked for my dad. I remember the teacher saying, "Your dad should fire him!" because he had long hair. I remember crying. I remember thinking my dad was a better man for looking at a man for what he did instead of what he looked like.
I remember eighth grade being the last time I played an organized sport. They didn't exist for girls after eighth grade.
There's more I remember. I do think that some things have changed for the better since then. Overall I think most tend to romanticize that time. People tried to make things better by changing words but I think that people continue to find a way to hate. (Witness the fifth grader I heard taunt another one the other day by calling him "mentally challenged")
It was different back then, but it wasn't better.
Rita
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