“Lying at the heart of humor, creativity is risk taking. You will never do great things unless you enter the realm of uncertainty.” — Frank Farley

“Youth is strength and folly, old age is wisdom and disability.” I’m not sure who authored that, but it’s something I acquired somewhere.

A few days ago I captured a hard, rubber, dirty ball with an assortment of hand-made painted blobs resting on a partially faded white surface with multiple cracks but still hanging on. It kind of reminded me of life. I didn’t show it to Mello and Fred.

Now I’m hoping to read a new book to complete in time. The one I have in mind is “The Anti Chomsky Reader,” by Peter Collier and David Horowitz. I’m on the chapter of Whitewashing Dictatorship in Communist Vietnam…I haven’t gotten far enough to understand what they are talking about and that may continue.

In the meantime Mello is putting the bite on Fred, who harnessed a chew stick. Mello then picked up my multicolored hard rubber ball and attempted to chew it. Fortunately I was able to rescue it from a collection of multicolored hard rubber bits.

It was good to read in the Star Tribune the other day the headline: “Reject status quo in Minneapolis schools.” I think this should apply to all schools.

In the story, coalition members expressed their frustrations in their “Contract for Student Achievement” position paper. The group asked that decisions about hiring, placement and layoffs be based on teacher evaluations — not seniority.”

Wouldn’t it work better if students were able to work together in classes on subjects that are open to their own class discussions; students working with other students instead of facing instructor’s lectures.

I’m hoping that’s not the case these days. Again I go back to Edith Morey, “our” fifth grade teacher that involved the classroom working together or independently with discussions or listening to stories read.

I still recall Miss Morey’s reading of “Call It Courage” in 1954. We were all captivated and you couldn’t hear a sound from the classmates. She held everybody’s attention until she closed the book.