Bring Me Back a Present

     When I taught middle school I had a newspaper unit for one of the grades. We looked at all the parts of a daily paper starting with the header and ending with classified ads. We looked at headlines, first sentence of a story, editorials ..absolutely everything. The assignment was to make a scrapbook with about 10 different examples from the paper. The assignment was easy but it made the kids look through a newspaper. I killed a few birds with this stone. It got the kids reading and had them look at writing for a purpose. We did the crossword as a class and generally rooted through the whole paper. For a fine finale we took a field trip through a daily paper and saw how the paper was produced from start to finish.

I think I might need some new glasses

   I hope that some people found newspapers. I know the odd one is working for a newspaper but not likely from my newspaper unit.

   When  someone would tell me they were being taken out of school for a trip, I would look them in the eye and say, "You have to bring a present back for me!" A nervous distraught look would come over their face which said, "Is this guy for real?" I would give them a few seconds to be uncomfortable. The odd one would say ,"No way." Others might say, "Well , what do you want." Usually I got them off the hook and said , "Bring me back a newspaper." A look of relief  flooded across  their face and they enthusiastically said , "Oh sure!" I told them they didn't have to actually buy a newspaper. Their would be newspapers that they could pick up.

    So when they came back with their newspaper , I would make a big deal over the paper and we would briefly go through the paper and pass it around. Later on when they were going away they would ask me if I wanted a paper. Then they would come and say , "My Dad's going to Russia. Do you want a paper?" Some time later they would proudly come in with a paper. 

   I made a lot of mileage out of this gag. Quite a pile of newspapers built up over the years. Sadly there wasn't a lot of storage space so I had to clean out the closet from time to time. When I retired I disposed of all the newspapers that were left. Many memories went with the newspapers I collected. 

    "Bring me back a present" was a lot of fun.