My best, most vivid memories of school comes from the second and third year of secondary school (that’s 7th & 8th grade to all you mercans). That’s the period when I got into the most trouble, had my biggest triumphs, copped my first feel, made my first teacher cry (and the second a couple of days later), got caned for the first time [could that be related to the previous memory? – ed], was most active in sports, got beaten around the head hardest by a teacher, wrote my first song, wrote the most lines (le silence aides le travail) and a thousand other similar memories.

It was shocking to think, when I dropped my son off for his first day of middle school this morning, to think that those kids were only a year younger than I was in Mr Gooden’s class.

I feel a whole lot of memory-related blogs coming on…