I started school in a two-room building: grades 1 to 4 in one room; grades 5 to 8 in the other. One teacher in each room taught all four grades. I don’t remember first grade very well – the teacher left at the end of the year. I am pretty sure it was not my fault. Now keep in mind that reading the Bible every morning was the standard for all grades at that time. But my teacher in grades two to four went a little above and beyond the normal practice. As a member of a “plain” sect, she considered it her duty to lead the little heathens to Christianity. She offered a free Bible to all students who managed to memorize 20 verses. I memorized my verses – “Jesus saves” was my favorite because it was the shortest – and got my Bible with my twenty underlined in red. That would be illegal today (not the underlining), and rightly so. Teachers may not teach religion, although contrary to what many folks seem to think, students may bring their Bibles to school, read them, and pray their
My alarm clock goes off every morning at eight, except for the few times when I have a breakfast date. Usually I wake up about an hour before that, or at least I partly wake up. It is important that I remain in a “not quite awake but not quite asleep” state, because I consider that time as the germination period for whatever seeds happen to have blown into my head.