February 26 - Clearly Falling Behind

Third Grade Journal – February 17, 1992
Todays player of the day¹ is David Robinson². He is a Center for the San Antonio Spurs. His Number is 50³.

¹ – Sadly, today I don’t have the means to post the amazing drawing of David that accompanies this entry. If you picture the Karl Malone drawing you can get a pretty good idea of what it looks like, though.
² – Did you know that David Robinson is one of four people in NBA history to record a quadruple double?
³ – There’s too much information! I’ll never be able to remember all of that!

Third Grade Journal – February 24, 1992
Today’s player of the day is Magic Johnson. He plays for Lakers but not any more. He has Aids⁴. But Forget about that⁵. He can dunk, layup and hookshot very good⁶. His number is 32.

⁴ – To be clear, I don’t think his HIV ever fully (or has ever fully) developed into AIDS. And when’s it’s written like that, it really just sounds like he has helpers instead of a disease. I’m just saying.
⁵ – Yes, let’s forget about all that. We’re here to talk about basketball!
⁶ – Leaving off passing is rather auspicious, seeing as how he was (and probably still is) better at passing than at any of those other things.

Sixth Grade Journal – February 6, 1995
My opinion on the best invention would probably have to be either people and animals (made by the great, almighty God!)⁷ or probably electricity made very strangely by Benjamin Franklin⁸.

⁷ – How cute and endearing. I mean, people and animals are pretty good. Maybe I was on to something there.
⁸ – Someone doesn’t know the difference between an invention and a discovery.

Sixth Grade Journal – February 20, 1995

1 – Frankfort Trip⁹
2 – COSI Trip¹⁰
3 – 4-H Day Camp
4 – Junior Achievement class¹¹
5 – First Day at Hager
6 – Paramount Trips¹²
7 – Making 5^th and 6^th grade b-ball teams
8 – Being Hager Governor’s Cup Captain¹³
9 – Making Verity Governor’s Cup
10 – Spelling Bees¹⁴

⁹ – This seems to be a list of “favorite memories at Hager” or something like that. Frankfort trips were always special because it seemed awesome to be visiting the state capitol. When you get older and realize that Frankfort is a silly city with like 25,000 people, it seems less awesome.
¹⁰ – COSI is one of the greatest places on Earth. It is full of great examples of how science can be made fun if properly demonstrated. And it’s right across the street from the first Wendy’s.
¹¹ – I have no idea what this is. At all. Clearly not that memorable.
¹² – I loved to going to the Paramount to see shows and plays when I was a kid. There was something I always used to do, however, that seems hilarious to me in retrospect but was probably very annoying at the time. When the crowd would clap, after ten or so seconds I would start shushing really loudly as if I thought that there had been enough congratulation. On with the show!
¹³ – That has a nice ring to it. Of course, this was after the retirement of Amar Shah, who was one of the most dominant forces in Ashland Governor’s Cup history.
¹⁴ – I won the third grade spelling bee by spelling “khaki” and “poisonous” in the final round. You’ll note that I did not have fond memories of the Geography Bee, in which I was screwed (in the same year) by a question that claimed Africa was a larger continent that Asia. What a load of garbage.