Archives for March 2011

Last week I hosted a bruising conversation about education. And now one of my favorite bloggers, onetime St. Louis schools communication chief Glynn Young, leans on C.S. Lewis to write a fine post about would-be education reformers—and, for us, a perfect postscript.

Yesterday morning Scout realized to her dismay that her instant oatmeal variety pack had dwindled down to just the plain stuff.

To douse her grousing, I grumbled, "Yeah, you know, life isn't a bowl of cherries."

And then I burst out laughing, confusing her even further. "What's so funny?"

Just now I'm racing down Ashland Ave. on the last leg of my four-mile run, and I'm barrelling past a round-faced drunk with a beard that makes his head look like a purple tennis ball.

"Heyougotaspare …" he slurs just like Otis Campbell on The Andy Griffith Show, and in the split second before he finishes his sentence, I figure he's about to say 'dollar'—"cigarette?"

Instinctively I slap my gymshorts pocket and, finding no Chesterfields, I say a quick but sincere apology and run on, laughing.