The Truth

Fourth graders tell the truth. At least when they are making observations about my appearance. Sigh. A week ago, we were talking about modifying a paragraph -- the difference between editing and revising. Anyway, the word "modified" in my lexicon always refers first to motorcycles. We once belonged to a group called the MMA: Modified Motorcycle Association. It was a political group trying to keep helmet laws off the books, and make life as a chopper owner more compatible with the highway patrol, the motor vehicle's department, and other entities with whom one had to interact regularly who generally didn't like that you had taken your motorcycle and changed it from the original version.

So, anyway, I showed by drawing two bikes, that it was a motorcycle still, but it could be modified so that it had a different sense of style; and that was what revising entailed: it's still your paragraph, but you've enhanced it. Since all of them have seen the show "Orange County Choppers" the whole motorcycle analogy worked for them. Only, I used Mr. Cool Guy as my example. This led to a clamor for photos to show them what I was talking about.

So today I remembered to bring in the photos. The first photo up on my screen (using the ever-awesome Elmo mini-cam) elicited loud ooohs and aaahs: the 1938 Knucklehead chopper. It was painted pearl blue and was raked and extended (18 inches). It was quite awesome looking--not so awesome to drive on the hills of San Diego. But the students were very impressed. I put up another shot of it with Cool Guy and me on it, taken by a friend in 1974...

"Who's that?"

"That's Mr.[Cool Guy] and me."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. It was a long time ago."

"Wow--you were really pretty then! You're old now."

Let's just say that I've been "modified" by Mother Nature.