Bonnie and Clyde

When I was in first grade, our once-a-month volunteer art teacher, a young woman in her 20s, gave us a lesson. When she stopped at my desk to view my drawing, she criticized the sharp-point tops I had drawn on my mountains and pine trees. It burned me to be forced by her to erase the tops, and to draw gentle-slope ones instead. "This is MY drawing," I thought to myself, "what gives her the right to change it?" The lesson stopped with the end of the school day. I began walking home, and when I reached the street corner, suddenly I heard a police-whistle blow. It was the art teacher's husband, who was volunteering as the crosswalk guard! He said I was jaywalking, and ordered me to write 50 or so punishment lines for my regular teacher for the next morning. "I've been crossing this way for weeks," I thought to myself, "who's this newcomer to tell me where to walk?" From that day on, whenever I doodle at a meeting or a lecture, I repeatedly draw mountains and pine trees with sharp-point tops in heavy lines; I deliberately drive five or so miles per hour beyond the speed limit past school-crossing guards; and I avoid as much as possible 20-something-year-old married couples.

-Old Doc