Ode to Yankee Doodle

Whew! Was I glad to get home from work today!!

There was a major thunderstorm (complete with hail!) yesterday at my school. A couple of trees in neighboring yards had fallen and closed some streets and the remainder of the leaf/branch debris was a little scary looking. When I went into the building, I was told that there was no electrical power in the gymnasium. I am generally the one who does work orders and I am a little mechanically inclined, so they asked me to help the custodian open up a fuse box. Seemed easy enough, right?

None of our keys fit the lock for the fuse box. Our head custodian just retired at the first of May after many, many years of service in this building. Her replacement works nights, but the building is new to him. The second in command is very nice and can handle most of the work, but she is new to the building and speaks (and understands) very little English. Finally, we decided to call the retired expert. She told me we aren't allowed access to that fuse box. I spent about 30 minutes checking every other fuse box I could find and finally went to the gym to see how bad the outage was. I walked in and heard the fans running and every light was on.

Always verify that there is a problem before you spend a lot of effort to solve it.


School is out Monday at 11 a.m., so the teachers are inventing things for the kids to do to entertain them. A teacher found me at lunch time and asked me if I'd help her out later in the day. The second grade classes were having a talent show. The teachers asked different kids what there talent was. Alex wanted to show off his skill at whistling. Another boy in the class had assured the class that whistling was not a talent. This teacher asked if I would come to the class and whistle a song to support him and prove that it was a talent. (I know, that is a reach, but we're talking about second graders.) I love to sing, but I whistle a lot, too.

Okay, about thirty minutes later, Alex was brought to meet with me about our "talent." I asked him what he wanted to whistle. "Ode to Joy" was his response. Wow! I was impressed. He whistled it for me and I really was impressed because he whistled both breathing in and out. He told me that the only song he couldn't whistle was "Yankee Doodle." Okay, that is not my favorite song, but I can't see how it is more difficult than "Ode to Joy." I told him it was pretty plain and couldn't be made fancy very easily, but I whistled it and asked him if he wanted to try it.

"No."

"But I am sure you could whistle it! It isn't that hard! Why can't you sing it?"

He said, "I just don't like that song!" Oh.

We went to the talent show and he whistled his ode to joy and I whistled "Yankee Doodle."

Kids are terrific!