Sidewinder

One of the cardinal rules of blogging, or so I'm led to believe, is that one should never discuss one's professional life, lest a particularly fanged entry get in the hands of the wrong people. However, the things I would blog about, if I could blog about my professional life, are not fanged or mean-spirited. I work with children and hear some amazing things every day. Just yesterday, one of my students really hit one out of the park with an observation and I can't tell you about it. Sigh.

I'll substitute it with a story from my own childhood:

There was a time when I went to live with friends of my parents for the space of a few months or so. I was seven. When I think back on this time, I find it hard to believe it actually happened to me.
Olivia (not her real name), a southern deb and ex-socialite, owned a tract of land in suburban Pittsburgh. At the time I was sent to live with her, she had a rooster named "Hitler" (he had a particularly mean and combative nature though probably didn't deserve to be named Hitler), a hen named "Little Red Hen", a dog named "Pilgrim", and a cat named "El Gato". Little Red Hen lived in the garage because Olivia was worried about the zoning board discovering that she had chickens on her property. Every morning, I would fetch an egg from Little Red Hen and feel bad that she had to live in the garage. Once, I saw her actually expel the egg and it was one of those odd sort of moments, like when you accidentally see your parents naked, or someone in dire pain, and you're overwhelmed by the biology of it. I digress.

So, here's a song I made up about the rooster:

Oh, I would not be hitler the rooster!
I'll tell you the reason why: (tell us why!)
Because one fine day the lord's gonna come
and I'd be too CHICKEN to die.