Book Dumping

Moving from grade school to middle school was traumatic for a lot of us. We were going from sitting in one classroom all day to switching classrooms every period. Most of us were worried that we'd get lost walking among the classrooms in the labyrinthine 'East Wing' of our school. Maps were hand drawn, photocopied, and passed out to students. The greater fear than getting lost, however, was getting your books dumped. This would happen at one of the two 'crash corners' where masses of students would intersect while hurrying between classrooms, and one of the older middle schoolers would reach over and knock your books out of your hands. It was a virtual yard sale of text books, notebooks, and loose leaf paper covered with careful cursive. I remembered it the other day when I saw some kid standing on the sidewalk next to a pile of books he'd just dropped into the snow. In middle school you'd either kick the kid's books or help him pick them up, but I wish I'd honked my car horn and yelled, "Welcome to middle school!"