A COMPASS, A PROTRACTOR,
AND A BIG CHIEF TABLET!
This week, I have a question, prompted by a bad left turn down the "school supplies" aisle at my neighborhood food
stamp store. Like...just what gives with the compass and the protractor? Do these guys have a lobby group in Washington, or what ?
Question: Can anyone honestly tell me that after your parents dutifully bought a compass and a protractor for your REQUIRED school supplies, you actually used
them for purposes other than a plastic bookmark and a weapon of mass destruction? Did anyone at the time even know what their intended uses were? (Poor little Inez Mehaffey
in my third grade class probably still has scars from "The Great Compass Mumbletypeg Tournament" at recess.)
For cryin' out loud, when I went to school, not having these two cornerstones of modern education could be grounds for being put back a year. Forget about stabbing little
Inez -- that was just a slap on the wrist, but not having your compass and protractor ... man, that was serious stuff !!
MOM: "Got your compass and protractor, Billy Bo?"
BILLY BO: "Gosh yes, Mom, wouldn't leave home without 'em!"
(Yes, BILLY 'BO' -- only because my sister, who gets a copy of this Pulitzer caliber material, couldn't say "brother"... it came out "BO". She was actually fifty-years
ahead of the times -- I think she was really saying, "Billy BRO" - - but I digress.)
I seriously doubt that anyone ever raised their IQ with the dexterous use of a protractor, and just TRY flying Delta, or getting through Mrs. Hannifin's second-grade
homeroom metal detector with that there compass . These two devices have to be the "gill slits" of our educational system. But, here's the sad news:
WHERE ARE YOU, BIG CHIEF? WHERE ARE YOU?
Something was missing on my store's school supply aisle. My vast research staff has learned that the official "Big Chief" tablet, complete with its bold Native American in
headdress on the cover, is no more. We can't determine if old Big Chief, and his loyal Son of Big Chief fell by the wayside due to "Political Correctness", but the 80-year
old plant started by the Western Tablet Company in St. Joseph, Missouri, shut its doors last year.
"ABC's" and "2+2's" aside, there's no telling how many New York Times "best seller" novels and "Fortune 500" business plans were started on the lined writing tablet, known
as Big Chief. But hey, no worries, Mate!! They're sellin' those compasses and protractors in FOUR-PACKS over there at the 'seven-leven'.
HAVE A GOOD WEEK, EVERYONE...
O'C
