With Ease

As my classmates from so long ago never tired of telling me, Don, you are so weird!

I did experience a bit of pride however in a government class in high school when our teacher asked us if we could defeat a class of Soviet high school students in debating which system was better.  One of the more attractive young ladies in the high school promptly spoke up:  Of course, we’d win!  We have Don!

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Frank
Frank
Saturday, April 9, AD 2022 6:23am

I guess it’s probably not done any more, but when I was in grade school, I believe it was the fifth grade, we were given a world map with nothing but boundaries and natural features on it. No city names, although capitals were indicated by stars. Mountain ranges and bodies of water had their names in English. Our assignment was to fill in the names of all the countries and their capital cities. All we were allowed to use as sources were encyclopedias and atlases. It was a great and lengthy exercise and I still can remember many of the capitals and identify most of the nations. We even had to ID the “republics” that made up the old USSR, of which “Ukrainian SSR” was one. I am sure today’s “educators” would find all sorts of reasons to criticize and ban our project. Phooey on them. 😁

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Saturday, April 9, AD 2022 6:58am

“Of course, we’d win! We have Don!” –> still true today!

Quotermeister
Quotermeister
Saturday, April 9, AD 2022 8:11am
Donald Link
Donald Link
Saturday, April 9, AD 2022 8:41am

Frank is correct. Maybe then, now, not so much.

CAM
CAM
Saturday, April 9, AD 2022 7:32pm

Ceylon
Aden
Czechoslovakia

Ezabelle
Ezabelle
Sunday, April 10, AD 2022 4:48am

Great project Frank.

Saigon
Sudan
Macedonia
Holland (it’s now The Netherlands)

Ps. The “nerds” always have the last laugh.

Frank
Frank
Sunday, April 10, AD 2022 7:03am

And I did much of my work on the assignment at my grandparents’ house, not far from us, where my granddad regaled me with names of countries that already had been changed from when he was in school around the turn of the 20th Century. I would have gotten a poor grade had I used the names from his 1934 edition of the Rand McNally World Atlas!

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