I've been keeping a list in my head of all the abandoned practices from elementary school that I think we should consider employing in adult life. Here's what I've come up with so far:
A. Four square
Admit it, you miss this game. Four square was the best game ever. You could make up utterly stupid rules, and as long as you were winning and called rules fair and square, you were good--double hits, slams, around-the-world. I love that red rubber ball. I think every workplace should have a hallway big enough for a four square and a red bouncy ball tucked away. Then, when everybody's stressed out and sick of each other and nothing is budging no matter how hard we try, everybody gets in line and we play four square and everybody gangs up and slams the boss. Or maybe if we scheduled 15 minutes in the morning and fifteen minutes in the afternoon. I might suggest this at our next staff meeting.
B. On a related note: Tetherball
C. Art projects: When was the last time you shaved crayons between two sheets of waxed paper, applied a hot iron to melt it, allowed it to cool, and cut shapes out the hang in your window? If you are anything like me, it's been too long. Too damn long.
D. Chorus. Did you have a chorus at your elementary school? Did you join in the early morning shout of patriotic jubilation? I totally did. And we were always singing something like "I'm Proud to Be an American" or "The Candy Man" or "The World is a Rainbow."
Sidenote: When was the last time you saw a rainbow made up of yellow, black and white and brown? That would be the worst rainbow in the history of the light spectrum.
I'm pretty sure my mom just liked getting us out the door a half hour earlier than usual. We also had a children's choir in my ward when I was a kid, and we were delightful, singing such classics as "Where is Heaven?" I'm fairly certain, though, that we all attended practice after Primary anxiously awaiting the strains of "Sing your way home" followed by a treat on the way out the door. Still, I will say this, a resounding declarative statement: We do not sing nearly enough as adults.
E. Carnival/Field day: Every fall and every spring, someone should throw a big party where all we have to do is show up, square dance, and eat at the bake sale. Foot races are optional. I call I'm not in charge of planning anything.
F. Reading time: After lunch, every day, someone should read to us for fifteen minutes. It should be a law of nature, like gravity or the water cycle. It just should happen.
G. Summer break: Totally self-explanatory.
Now, don't think I'm glossing over the indignities of childhood--I remember cafeteria lunches and mean girls and not having control over anything from my wardrobe to my schedule. I just don't know why we threw the baby out with the bathwater. There was some good stuff there that perhaps we should have held on to.
Update: Also, I want to make one of those Valentine's Day mailboxes out out of a shoe box. I don't care about the Valentines, I just want to decoupage a shoe box. Yellow conversation hearts, though, will be happily accepted anytime.
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