Monday, September 21, 2015

Joining 'Em

As I took attendance on the first day of school I came across a name on my roll that I had never had in my class before. "Marco?" I called.

"Polo!" several students answered.

Marco himself looked a little grim as he gave me a little salute along with his mumbled 'Here'.

"I think he's heard that one before," I said. "So let's not do that anymore."

Still, I knew it would be hard, mostly because I, myself, had the impulse to cry out that famous rejoinder whenever I said his name.

It's been a couple weeks, now, and the problem has faded considerably, at least from my perspective. Or at least that's what I thought until I looked through a stack of assignments that the kids had turned into my substitute last week.

There was a name scrawled across the line at the top of one sheet that I couldn't make out. I squinted trying to match the squiggles with letters and the letters with students' names. Is that a 'P'? I wondered, and indeed it was.

Looks like someone has re-named himself Polo.

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