Exciting Times in the Buckeye State

Been some excitement around Ohio this week. Down in Cincinnati they want to pass a law that will fine kids a hundred bucks for playing in the street. No matter that most kids who play in the street don't usually carry that amount around with them. The fines keep going up for repeat appearances in Playing-In-The-Street Court.
Well, I suppose most residents of the Queen City believe something must be done about these vicious criminals. They might wonder, though, if the kids - probably a bunch of rowdy boys - might be playing stickball and football in the streets because the upstanding citizens being delayed in their fancy automobiles and SUVs haven't provided them with enough places to play OFF the streets.
But the real excitement came over in Norwalk and if you want to get right to the bottom of things it probably was another bunch of rowdy boys who blew things all out of proportion. It seems some big shot from the State Legislature down in Columbus was giving a talk in a Norwalk school and to keep it from being mind-boggling boring he was showing slides on a big screen. Kids like big screens. So the fellow was talking away and clicking the gadget in his hand so new slides would appear when what should pop up on the screen but a naked lady. Now I imagine this unexpected treat caused a bit of whooping and catcalling on the part of the boys who should at least have had the decency to close their eyes.
Naturally I have tried to imagine what this event would have been like had it occurred at my old school in the heart of East Akron's industrial area. There were 44 in my class and half of them lived in the Childrens Home and a good percentage of the other kids came from homes where the father was unemployed, it being the Great Depression and all. When I arrived in the sixth grade things were a little rough and by seventh grade were pretty much out of hand and by eighth grade it was total chaos. I've mentioned before about Dewitt Russell receiving the American Legion Good Citizenship Award a week after he punched out the teacher and broke her glasses. This probably said something about the citizenship of the rest of the class.
So in my mind I'm trying to visualize the effects of having a naked lady suddenly appear on a big screen in front of the room. It isn't a pretty picture. I can see the shocked looks on the faces of the girls. The prevailing conditions had made them a bit rough around the edges and yet they had managed to retain their femininity. Well, some of them had. Later when no boys were present so they didn't have to act like they were shocked to the core there would have been a lot of whispering and giggling.
But the boys - their reaction doesn't bear thinking about. Let's just say that the good times would have rolled right along.
All this will turn out OK, I'm sure, because an investigation has been launched to discover how such a dastardly deed could have been allowed to happen. As we all know, investigations solve everything and this one, I'm sure, will find the state legislators taking a close look at the evidence.

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