PORCH PONDERINGS

Lessons

PROMPT March 16th

What lesson do you remember most vividly from your childhood?

Good question. And I wish I had a good answer. Maybe piano lessons. They were in a drafty room up the road in a lady’s home. I think my grandmother paid for them. Because they led to band. I played a flute in band for six years. Junior high into high school. For a shy person to be in a group setting like that was a big deal.

Maybe I could also add sewing. I was in 4-H. I did sewing. I entered a pitiful dress in the county fair. I can almost remember what it was. But it led to a life-long ability to sew for fun and practical uses. Everyone should know how to sew.

Will everyone add do what you’re told? Be nice? Behave? Obey your parents? Don’t talk back? I haven’t read the other responses yet. I was a bit of a rebel. I fear I wasn’t an easy child.

We’ve been doing some talks about child-rearing on our church’s radio program. I’m the one that always has the horror stories. The other ladies never seem to have rebelled, talked back, or in turn had rebellious children that gave them grief.

But then I remember something I’ve seen, “Well behaved women rarely make history.” Pulitzer Prize winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wrote that.

I think I’ll take that as validation.