While at the parents' place on Thanksgiving, I sorted stuff. Got rid of some stuff. Decided to keep some stuff. Decided to look again at some stuff. I, as do many of us, have a lot of stuff, and whittling away at said stuff is a slow but needed process.

One of the things I found was a slim volume of a short story collection issued by The Great Books Foundation, an educational group that works on helping students get better at discussing and interpreting stories. I suddenly remembered that back in fifth grade at Louise Archer Elementary in Vienna Va, I'd read several of these: other collections included Ray Bradbury's "The Veldt," which made an eye-widening impression on me. The particular volume I found, that I somehow still had decades after reading it, was one with Shirley Jackson's story "Charles" and Langston Hughes's "Thank You, M'am." I don't think I read every story back then (though I just read the entire, again slim, volume, because I might as well before throwing it out), but I know for sure I read those two stories because I took notes.

Including of which words Fifth-Grade Me didn't know.

Which were:

renounced
swaggering
raucous
insolently
addressing (as in "paying attention to")
"See here, young man"
rubbers (as in boots)
passionately
incredulously
cynically
unwisely
respectfully
prayerfully
matronly
primly
lapses
willow-wild
half-nelson (I rarely got into scrapes as a kid, I didn't know wrestling holds.)
kitchenette-furnished
daybed (These two show: I hadn't lived in apartments!)
presentable

...I had a lot to learn.

I have a lot to learn, thirty-plus years later.