The ultimate culmi-NATION of forces: catching U.S. Outside, looking In - A Strip Teaser!

Giving Recess! its due.

So, just where is every body...? Good question and one we catch our-selves asking, no matter what time of day, weather condition...taking a walk around the park, or even, when "strolling" around the school-yard, when there's even the "slightest indication" -- coming out of the mouth of a so-called "babe" (well, that's not what THEY call them anymore) -- issued from one of the "Top Ten most attractive, other-wise highest paid Meteorological Proctologists" -- some of which actually studied such "forces of nature" -- whereas others learned to just, simply "pose" -- as in modeling...became well in-formed that this might be a good pausing point, maximum ex-posure ("Harry didn't their mothers warn them that going out dressed like that, could catch them-selves a cold? Martha, I think anything, but...") -- on the way to bigger "star-dom" (as I said, in my last post, if you bothered to look, this whole thing, regarding different dimensions of Recess! is "astronomic"!) The breadth and depth of which was even not even fully appreciated by your loyal im-poster, the originator of this blog, which was started, prompted, as you might recall... 

The long walk back: Even if you are not a "walker" and just want to, meta-phorically speaking, take a "walk down memory lane.." Or, if you don't want to be bothered with studying the history of this blog in all its "gory details" (referred to as "lurid" here, just a few days ago...come on, you can at least go back, just a step or two...as in "go back one square"...a common refrain from Recess! of old...). But if you come from the so-called "old school-ers" you'll need to put on what used to be called "thinking caps" -- which was more of a state of mind, setting the mood, a state of readiness, that teachers used to be able to utter, especially, at different times of the day, when it was especially challenging to get the kids to "settle down!" and be ready to learn, such as when they returned from what became known as "special" (e.g., music, library, art, the "gym-nasium!"). Which, depending on the day, local, either preceded, "lunch-time" which was, in turn, either accompanied by or separated by the most coveted time of the day (for students and teachers for slightly different reasons, purposes) -- what has, at budget times, also become known as a "set aside" or, in other cases, "restricted" as in "only for this purpose"...RECESS! A word that came into being well before anyone around these parts saw any real purpose for it. But became associated with all kinds of senses, as in the most sensational time of the day, if my interviews with thousands of youngsters who are currently of school age, and even more thousands who have "aged out" but fondly recall...

Don't get dunced! A word that has fallen out of popularity, along with the "dunce hat" which was kind of the opposite condition of what the teachers told us we could experience if we'd only put on our thinking caps. Which, along with donning this conspicuous conical cap, could find you sitting in the corner, looking a bit "forlorn" or otherwise, staring at the walls. Now simply called "time out". Fun fact: did ya' know that this type of attire was first conceived as an "article of discipline" an association with the word that was meant as a "mild insult" in order to gain the attention of the class, a (negative) motivator, and strongly aligned with, actually derived from the one and only John Duns Scotus -- a Scottish theologian and philosopher...making sense, yet? 

"Got it now?!" Ready to learn...get down to business...Or, are you still looking for the "juicy" -- AKA "racy...titillating...provocatively interesting...SALACIOUS!" details of what got, then sustained your attention...Weather or Not, you want to admit it...as in the Teaser!

Stripped Down: Which, throughout the course of time, in "due course" throughout history, if things that are first coveted and then found to be of "at least some value"...even the most valued institutions...when being exposed to the forces of nature or otherwise natural forces (US) could become scarce, hardly a glimmer of what it used to look like...after time and place when WE, the newest gens came on the scene of this ersatz area set aside, for "simple reflection" (yep, that's about all we are now allowed), used to be called a PLAY! ground...This was before, the generation just before US, when asked "Where are all the teachers, other adults around here...?" The answer is, based on the evidence that is conspicuous, only by its absence...

"Out, stripping" Gotcha! Made you look, didn't I? But, given the slight accent, as in a comma, this whole stripping action takes on a slightly different look. That is, as in teachers being recruited to assist in the process of dis-mantling all those "new-fangled" (see 11/16 post for full break-down) play! things -- things to play on, which changed the landscape...one which, after the so-called "educational X-perts" who thought they knew what was best for us (as in another instructional hour in order to catch up with the educational elites, else-where, given the need to compete in a global economy), got together with the lawyers who have been retained, if not restrained...until now. "Now" back then, being the moment that the scrapes and bruises that accumulated from the "new-fangled" became entangled in law-suits...outweighing, they argued, any quality-of-life enhancement (I.E. "FUN!") we, back then, might derive from climbing, sliding, jumping off...points.

Rumor has it: One of the many that continue to swirl, or other-wise persist, despite all THEIR best efforts to "quell" them...that the real reason, the true poop, of why the whole troupe of subs, came marching in that day, accompanied by what used to be referred to us, fondly as a rep from the "audio-visual" department...which used to actually housed in a room, down the hall, which brought us all kinds of film...clips -- much to the chagrin of our parents ("what did you do in school today...bet you had another sub, watched another movie?!"). But even this has been supplanted, replaced, usurped even...by all kinds of more personal screens...which came to occupy all of U.S. back then, on that fate-full day, when we hardly noticed...the "metal strippers" who came, then just simply walked off, with all the "new-fangled" now all tangled up...all this, in order THEY explained well after, was for OUR own good. Which WE eventually came to realize was at least in part to feed the all-most unsatiable appetite for these increasingly precious re-sources...else-where, outside the perimeter of our previously sacred ground, as in where we, back then, sought sanctuary each and every day. So much for a lesson in global economics...

A Clean Slate (?) That's one way to look at it. A clean blackboard. Erased. After the storm has cleared...

"The Coast is...clear" Which, back then, was simply signaled by the school bell...when only "fire drills" were part of the order of the day, the exact time of which was known only to the people housed in the school office, joined later by tornado drills (more often depending on where y'all resided), and then all kinds of prepping for various emergencies, that later gens were told were, in "crisis" -- absorbed an increasing number of hours of our school daze, which in turn required adding a few extra minutes each school day ("Oh, so that's why we now get out at 3:06...") in order to do the other drills we grew, to be accustomed to...

School Dazed and Confused: Asked, but (not yet) answered... back to the two main questions that to main questions that remain un-answered as of this very day. Simply put, as in a two-parter: "What's the use, the point of all this?" As in why would we, now after all that we have read and other-wise heard about, want to come to school...if there's no RECESS!? 

NEXT:- Storming back, the final say...it's gonna' be a GAS-tronomic adventure! As in P-s-s-t off.