One for the weekend

[Guest guest]

THIS & THAT:

 

When the 1960s ended, many hippies moved down the coast to Santa Cruz.

They got married and had children. But they didn't name their children

Melissa or Brett. People in the mountains around Santa Cruz grew

accustomed to their children playing with little Time Warp or Spring

Fever. And eventually Moonbeam, Earth, Love and Precious Promise all

ended up in public school.

 

That's when the kindergarten teachers first met Fruit Stand. Every

fall, parents applied name tags to their children, kissed them good-bye

and sent them off to school on the bus. So it was for Fruit Stand. The

teachers thought the boy's name was odd, but they tried to make the best

of it.

 

" Would you like to play with the blocks, Fruit Stand? " they offered.

And later, " Fruit Stand, how about a snack? " He accepted hesitantly.

By the end of the day, his name didn't seem much odder than Heather's or

Sun Ray's.

 

At dismissal time, the teachers led the children out to the buses.

" Fruit Stand, do you know which one is your bus? " He didn't answer.

That wasn't strange. He hadn't answered them all day. Lots of children

are shy on the first day of school. It didn't matter. The teachers had

instructed the parents to write the names of their children's bus stop

on the reverse side of their name tags. The teacher simply turned over

the tag. There, neatly printed, was the word " Anthony. "