I\u2019m still shaking my head over a conversation I heard while walking in my neighborhood. The characters: four or five middle school boys. The setting: a driveway. What they were doing: tossing a football and talking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s the First Amendments?\u201d asked Boy 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cI (mumble, mumble),\u201d said Boy 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cHa! You don\u2019t know!\u201d said Boy 1, in a condescending tone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, neither do you!\u201d protested Boy 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course I<\/em> know the First Amendments,\u201d said Boy 1. \u201cThat\u2019s why I asked you!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIf you know what it is,\u201d said Boy 2, \u201cwhy are you asking me?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTo see if you <\/em>know,\u201d said Boy 1. \u201cAnd I\u2019m not gonna tell you what it is!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHa! You think you\u2019re so smart!\u201d said Boy 2. \u201cBut you don\u2019t know the First Amendments either since you won\u2019t say what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHarrumph!\u201d said Boy 1. \u201cEverybody knows what it is. Everybody except you.\u201d<\/p>\n During all of this the other boys were quietly passing the ball around, likely hoping to avoid getting the question directed their way.<\/p>\n When I looped by the house a second time, boys were still arguing, though on a different topic, and louder than ever. Boy 2 was going after Boy 3 and prefacing every comment with: \u201cNow let me get this straight\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n My observation: there\u2019s a lot these kids need to get straight, starting with the difference between singular and plural. They seem to not know the difference, based on their reference to the First Amendments<\/strong>. <\/em><\/p>\n I don\u2019t know what grade they\u2019re in, but I think they\u2019ve earned an F <\/em>not only in American History, but in English, as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m still shaking my head over a conversation I heard while walking in my neighborhood. The characters: four or five middle school boys. The setting: a driveway. What they were doing: tossing a football and talking. \u201cWhat\u2019s the First Amendments?\u201d asked Boy 1. \u201cI (mumble, mumble),\u201d said Boy 2. \u201cHa! You don\u2019t know!\u201d said Boy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions\/312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}