LOL

I hope someone else in the world finds this as funny as I did. Students in Mrs. J. Brown's AP English (PHS, Class of '93) class might.... ****

Paraphrased from Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me!:

Woolworths in England recently agreed to stop selling their line of daybeds, marketed to six year old girls, unfortunately named "Lolita." ....

They also agreed to stop selling the Hannible Lector EZ Bake Oven and the ....

Catherine the Great line of My Little Ponies!!!!

(I love being edumacated....)

**** The AP English Class of PHS '93 was blessed and priveleged to have Mrs. Brown as our teacher. Mrs. Brown was a self-professed "Literary Nerd." By her own admission, she preferred to teach "kids who didn't drool." She is up there in one of my top three all-time teachers. (Edward Munley, may your soul rest in peace.)

We o' the English class weren't far behind on the dorkiness scale. In a school where the Thanksgiving Day football game is broadcast on ESPN and wrestlers are expected to go National, being editor of the LitMag isn't considered uber cool.

But in Mrs. Brown's English class, we ruled.

We started our own newsletter, based on puns. We had no problem throwing references to Catherine the Great and her .... predilictions .... around. We had meaningful debates regarding the romantic merits of Charles Darney v. Sydney Carton. (PS - Sydney wins every time.) If an administrator ever viewed our class, s/he probably would have had a heart attack and then put Mrs. Brown on probation.

But she was the only teacher to write a limerick in my yearbook. Which, almost 15 years later, still makes sense.

It often serves me to remind myself of the things that made me happy - nay, joyous - before I understood the trials and tribulations that life could offer.

Thank Heavens for the occasional random references to Catherine the Great that remind me of innocent joys.