Legends of the Fall: A traipse remembered or "Something Miked This Way Comes"

We weren't on the regular track, and it was usually a point, if we were mentioned, it was "smart shaming" or something, not the "nerd" word, never that, but we were a bit different.  What they had to do to set us out was run our little circle a year ahead of the regular track, for the purpose of preparing us for the AP exam as Seniors in high school.

It was something.

8th grade: Romeo and Juliet.

9th grade: Julius Caesar

10th grade: none(American Literature time)

11th grade: Macbeth

12th grade: Hamlet(interchanged sometimes with King Lear).

The respect I had for the head of the section that decided all this, it was astonishing, and her son, I punished him for hours on end with my presence, he and Jeremy, I punished them with my evil jokes about their "self discovery", junior high things that die hard.  He got revenge, did that son, by saying he could whiten my buttery teeth by ejaculating in my mouth, so there was a balance there.

The teacher in 8th grade seemed to enjoy Romeo and Juliet more than we did; we were not parsing the various double chicken tenders and stuff in the dialogue, and she was at pains often to point out things we would have otherwise missed.

Macbeth, however, was a complete romp.  We loved it.  I even got to portray Macbeth himself in a skit, and I had one line, and I knocked the bejesus out of it, using the old Steve Mcqueen technique of trying to draw attention to that, to make that one bit, if that was all I had, memorable to the audience.

A change of department heads, and cultural things, brought Tolkien into focus for the high school curriculum, with those people at pains to keep that attention of the students focused.  Lord of the Rings was not in the curriculum in my day, however, even though, on his own time, the smartest student that ever attended the school, would stay up very late on school nights reading the Tolkien trilogy.

The inject politics, in the other places, saying Oprah wrote a poetry book that was credited to a high school student, that hope and so forth is a dirty word, the implication.  However, I had a boxed of Oprah book club Faulkner stuff, which included Faulkner's most "racial" book, and he taking a partly racist stance most of the time.  Mind, his racial views seemed somewhat progressive probably in his time, maybe, though he was a conservative, and more to the point, he was less observing his own opinion, but a kind of reflection of reality.

We could hate that teacher's son just enough to spend hours with him away from school, that kind of brotherhood of real friends, that hurt each other so oft, but from them, the wounds are lesser than with strangers because of the friendship betwixt and between.

Ron Desantis is a chud, and people that complain about the curriculum generally portray a less than decently motivated concern.  Always, activism, either for the left or right, and fodder for the media, in observance or complaint, be it either, I would impeach Ron for excluding any amount of Shakespeare in the discourse, no matter what triggered parents complaints came to float like turds in the punchbowl, such as "Oprah wrote that book".

Trump and his cohorts tried to turn so much of the regular people against the media, to outright mistrust anything they say, and of course, the media naturally biased towards the progressives anyway, and then too, preaching to Trump haters, trying to "make the case" with people who decided long ago, such burning air time, and so on.  In turning the regular folk against the media, he wishes his own friendlies to be the main source of those folk's news, a kind of brain control, but Caitlyn, unable to get out of her own way, making a very dismal showing in her appearance with Trump, unwittingly(?) adding fuel to the narrative of progressive bias.

Such that it seemed like Donald and Caitlyn spoke two different languages.  And my own language, I reserve maybe for my own space, such that I may not even vote if its Donald and Joe on the ballot; neither represent me, but are more concerned about their own interests.  I like Tim Scott's Horatio Alger Gospel of American Opportunity, very much, but I wonder if he can gain traction, or will it all be toxic media gotchas as the fall of 2024 approaches.

People that ban Shakespeare should perhaps themselves be banned.  Perhaps I'm at pains to portray my discomfiture with old boy Ron.  Partly vanquished by Disney, Ron turns to Shakespeare, who may or may not have partisans protecting the interests of classic literature.

But there's me.