Do you love 100 things about school?

"Count your blessings, name them one by one…" – Johnson Oatman, Jr.

Unless you're the parent or grandparent of a little chatterbox, you've probably gotten resigned to the two stereotypical terse reactions to the innocent icebreaker question, "How was school today?" (i.e. "Okay" and "You actually pay property tax to support that place? Loo-ZER").

Amy Schwartz's posthumously published children's book "100 Things I Love About School" takes a more joyous, more expansive approach.

(Of course, there is a booming market for books with numbers in the title, like "C Things I Love About Roman Numerals," "100 Pointless, Invasive Medical Tests You Must Experience Before You Die," "Three Quarters of A Thing I Love About 'Don't Worry, Be Happy,'" "100 Things I've Forgotten and Left Behind in Motel Rooms and I Wish One of Them in Particular Would Go Ahead and Sign the Divorce Papers," and so forth.)

Schwartz did omit a few worthy nominees, however.

I recently interviewed some precocious students to flesh out the most lovable aspects of academia.

"I love the karma of school. High-and-mighty hall monitors usually grow up to wear an ankle monitor for stalking. Save the hall pass to communicate with your future cellmate, Eli, why don't'cha?"

"I love that dodgeball doesn't leave any lasting effects. And that the school nurse gives tender loving care to skinned knees. And, oh, yeah, that dodgeball doesn't leave any lasting effects."

"I love that you can kick the can down the road after humiliating yourself in the school talent show. I mean, no one can tell you not to give up your day job until you GET a day job, right?"

"I love that we can still express our religious convictions, albeit under very specific circumstances overlapping secular goals, such as exclaiming, 'Thank God, it's another substitute teacher!' (Who had money down on watching 'Frozen' for the third time?)"

"I love spending all year learning to regurgitate data for the standardized test. Thanks to my education, someday I will grow up to be either an engineer or a paralegal or a momma bird."

"I love Bring Your Grandparents to School Day, except when they get nostalgic about Woodstock and start trying to light up the climbing rope in gym."

"I love seeing the faculty show some humility. They know exactly how to solve world hunger, climate change and gun violence, but a simple head lice outbreak puts it all into perspective."

"I love that I've made peace with the fact that my passing notes in class has contributed to the death spiral of the United States Postal Service. Do you like messing up retirement accounts? Check 'yes' or 'no.'"

"I love Show and Tell, or as we call it now, 'Show and …No, Wait, That Doesn't Fit the Narrative So Let's Discuss Something Else.'"

"I love when the teacher reads us stories like 'The Emperor's New Disdain for Clothing Produced in Israel,' 'Charlotte's Web of Lies About The Mass Exodus of High Earners,' 'Oh, The Places You'll Go, If You Can Hop Over the Steaming Piles of Waste Left By the Unhoused' and 'The Caterpillar Who Quit Being Hungry, Hungry After He Ate the Rich.'"

Quite a bunch of future valedictorians. Maybe one of them can help me write my next book: "100 Danny Tyree Punchlines You Must Decipher Before You Reach Your Limit and Burn Down the Newspaper."

–

Controversial author Harlan Ellison once described the work of Mr. Tyree as "wonkily extrapolative" and said his mind "works like a demented cuckoo clock." Tyree generated a particular buzz on the Internet with his column spoofing real-life Christian nudist camps. A lifelong small-town southerner, he graduated from Middle Tennessee State University in 1982 with a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

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