Mike's Meadow Muffin for June 5, 2006

Westsyde Elementary School

January 5 1920 - June 2006

It was a little one room school-house ,

by an orchard, a few miles north of town,

where education  began ,

for so many young scholars,

from the farms and ranches around.

How many children in eighty-six years,

have toiled with pencil and pen,

to craft a foundation, for life and career,

How many women and men?

As the little school grew, the city did too,

The orchards and fields are all gone,

Stray cattle and horses no longer graze,

in the schoolyard, by the first light of dawn.

How many children, in eighty-six years?

have haunted these classrooms and halls

how many farm boys, wrote their first rhyme,

on one of the toilet stall walls?

Mike Puhallo

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