A letter to Hillary

Dear Hillary,

My heart swelled with girlish pride when you announced your candidacy for President. You weren’t going to let the big boys get you down.

I was reminded of the time I pummeled that skinny white boy on my Upper West Side block to win the inspired fear and awe of the other kids who hung out on 111th Street. I felt a little sick afterward, and wondered if he would still like me enough to steal a kiss behind the Cathedral. He didn’t. Still, I held a steady authority in the neighborhood for years after that minor beating.

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Breaking the bonds

Has any American History high school course ever managed to get close to the present day? Most run out of time somewhere around the Depression, if they get that far. (Maybe they ought to start at the present and work backwards…?) We didn’t even get to WWII in my own high school history class (I grew up in North Carolina, so we spent a lot of time on the Civil War and its aftermath) and there’s been another generation of history tacked on since then.

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