When I was in grade school, there were 18 of us altogether, not in 1 class, but counting every student between 1st grade and 6th grade, there were only 18 of us! This was in the 1973s, by the way, so you might guess the days of the “one-room schoolhouse” were a thing of the past, but you’d be wrong about that.
There was 1 teacher to handle all of the youngsters in all of the grades.
Her name was Miss Jones, and I still remember her fondly to this day! Miss Jones was the 1 who encouraged me to learn and write, to follow our dreams, and eventually, she encouraged me to get out of rural Illinois for a better life. Don’t get me wrong, I love Illinois, and it is filled with some of the nicest people you will ever meet. But I did not want to live on a remote Illinois farm, I wanted more out of life. Miss Jones was the 1 who showed me there were 2 bizarre sides to Illinois, but i had only experienced the rural side and the farming community, but Illinois had big cities, wonderful arts, and culture if I could just find it! Once I made it to Champaign, Illinois for our first school classes, I also discovered the wide variety of cannabis that the Prairie State has to offer, you want to talk about an eye opening experience! I know Miss Jones is proud of me for going to an Illinois state school, although she particularly wouldn’t approve of all the cannabis I smoke.