Peppermint Patty and Ducky Duddle*

I have any number of file folders with labels such as "Stuff," or "TTK," or "Bulletin Board." Over the years in the office, I dropped clippings from articles, things I had posted on the bulletin board, and in general things that interested me at the time. Occasionally I will pull one of these folders from the file cabinet and reminisce a bit. Sometimes I think, "What was I thinking?"

The cartoon above may be a reminder of a time when your student, or perhaps you yourself, had such an experience in your classroom. That may have represented a difficult childhood moment. But I look at Peppermint Patty's dilemma today and see it in a whole new light, for this experience is becoming more and more commonplace in my daily living. I find frequently I know exactly what I am thinking and I know that I know the word I want as well as I know my name, and yet it will not fall off the tip of my tongue. Very frustrating. There is a scientific name for this phenomenon, but I can't think of it at the moment.

I kept a supply of these little forms in my desk drawer. Occasionally a student, or a staff member, was the recipient of one of these. Good for making paper airplanes, or it might have been placed in the circular file. Whatever the case, my writing was not limited to reprimands and directives. One wonders, though, which sorts of notes had the greatest effect on a person's behavior.

There is another thing that happens when one gets old. He muddles in nostalgia and wonders what might have been. Or even what was.

*When I was in first grade, we sang a little song that went as follows:

A little Ducky Duddle went wading in a puddle,

went wading in a puddle quite small.

Said he it doesn't matter how much I splash and splatter

for I'm only a Ducky after all.

Now how's that for nostalgia?