One of the coolest gifts coincident to the recent birthday was an out-of-the-blue message from someone I was yoked to through a dozen years of parochial school in the world’s most provincial town. She thanked me for my contribution to her unsuccessful effort to become boss do tutti boss of our fellows! Here it is:
I had to ask her who won, because I didn’t stick around for my senior year, enrolling instead in boarding school, where I would produce a thick layer of delicious icing to disguise the stale pound cake of high school. And, I succeeded in fooling the gatekeepers at BU!
My old classmate’s greeting included this: “Sorry you had to miss senior year for misbehaving.” It truly is heart-warming to be remembered, especially with something as specific as this poster, but also to learn a century later that my childhood classmates think I had been banished for misbehaving – whatever that means.
If it is a euphemism for disobedience, then, sign me up. I’ve made a career of being disobedient to each and every person who ever has feigned authority over me. It made me the man I am today – broke, joyful, and free. And, possessed of sufficient restraint to resist asking details of my alleged misbehavior?
Better to let urban legends lie.