Subject: for your amusement
Date: 13 Dec 96 13:01:20 EST
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>, <[log in to unmask]>, <[log in to unmask]>,
<[log in to unmask]>
Retirement from a Child's View
Following winter break, a teacher asked her young pupils how they
spent their holidays. One small child wrote the following:
We always used to spend the holidays with Grandpa and Grandma. They
used to live here in a big brick house, but Grandpa got retarded and
they moved to Florida. Now they live in a place with a lot of other
retarded people.
They all live in little tin boxes. They ride on big 3-wheeled
tricycles and they all have name tags because they don't know who they
are. They go to a big building called the wrecked hall, but they must
have got it fixed, because it's all right now. They play games and do
exercises there, but they don't do them very good. There is a
swimming pool there, but they stand in it with their hats on . I
guess they don't know how to swim.
As you go in their park, there is a doll house with a little man
sitting in it. He watches all day so they can't get out without him
seeing them. When they can sneak out, they go to the beach and pick
up shells.
My Grandma used to bake cookies and stuff, but I guess she forgot how.
Nobody cooks much, they just eat out. They eat the same thing every
night: early birds. Some of the people don't know how to cook at
all, so my Grandma and Grandpa bring food into the wrecked hall and
they call it "pot luck."
My Grand ma says Grandpa worked all his life and earned his
retardment. I wish they would move back up here, but I guess the
little man in the doll house won't let them out!
--
Jim Melko
Director, Learning Assistance
University of Dayton
