Eight is the Magic Number

As I think back to my own experiences and reaffirm my convictions by reading the  Facebook postings of my students, I am convinced that the Eight Grade is the most fertile ground in the school yard of Life. Over and over, I am told by my students, most of whom are almost "decades" old (no offense intended!) that they will "always" remember a certain special moment.  Sadly, my mind is so clogged with such images that one moment runs into the next: red blurs into white and becomes pink! But even pink can be unforgettable.

Once upon a time there was an extra-curricular activitiy at a rural Florida middle school. We teachers were "forced" by our administration to pick a subject with which to impact our students  in a favorable way in less than  fifty minutes . Two of my clueless fellow-teachers and I decided to host an adolescent beauty class. We called it Beauty Forum...pretty generous title considering most of the girls were ignorant of most cosmetic applications...but if beauty constitues a forum, we had 100%, for THEY were all beauties!

 Those little chicks hit the Girls Locker room doors with the enthusiasm of seasoned shoppers with special tickes to  a 99 cent sale at Macy's. Despite the overage of feminine pulcritude, the girls were orderly, refraining from gender squealing and wasting  precious seconds. Those fifty minutes were like pure gold to my little women as they feverishly applied donated mascara with the deft applications of makeup pros . Those little wigets had done a speedy return on the usually "slower than molasses in January" permission slips signed by their parents (I HOPED the parents had signed them.) These  same notes testified to the  parents' approval of the beginnings of a long journey down a slippery slope...one that would allow these makeup virgins to emerge more grownup than their parents could ever imagine.  And this evolution started with a pot of lip gloss and a sparkly bottle of nail polish. It ended with new hair cuts, lasting impressions, and the assurance of a magic wand forever changing an image in the mirror---and so, we toast our prowess and cunning at diguise: "Until the warpaint is no longer needed!" But does that ever happen, ladies?