Mick: The Real Michael Collins It takes a bit of a devil to be a good leader, said Thomas Paine in admiration of The Soldier King of Prussia. The movie Michael Collins while accompanied by minor inaccuracies was a fine historical romance.

Miss Sweeney had watched the children at recess and was shocked to see Timothy Budd attempting to kick Johnny's genitals to across the street and though it seemed as if they were joking, she could not help but believe Timmy was actually trying to hurt Johnny, whose parents spoke "broken English", so savage were his kicks and only for Johnny's athletic ability prevented Timmy's kicks to land which would have made Johnny talk in a high pitched voice for the rest of his life and when the seventh grade children entered her science classroom she devoted half of the class time - without mentioning names - to how one should always protect himself from those who had dark souls as the Roman Saint Patrick had once said and who indeed did not rid the Emerald Isle of snakes since there where none (at this point she looked sternly at Timothy) and toward the end of her speech, while looking at Johnny, she said that some people were the cream of the crop and so being in such a position he would be attacked but he had an obligation to society to at all times protect himself. For the most part, the class stared at the teacher with their patented Burywater look: foreheads being attacked by deep ripples of creases and mouths hung opened wide.

Irish Fairy & Folk Tales

Johnny and Timothy were the only two who knew fully what she was talking about and Johnny would always remember this teacher who made him feel for the first time in this "Little Dublin" section of Burywater a self-worth and one day in the future strolling into social work, he decided to be a teacher instead which would give him summers off to write, and when he did become a teacher, he felt his sole goal was to teach his students the ability to think and he deeply believed if he could pull that feat off - knowing all the obstacles that would be in his way - he would have achieved in the giving - a tool that could be taken throughout life.

Johnny knew life would be full of hills going upward and the wind almost always in his face unlike the poem Miss Sweeney recited to the class at the end of the period that long ago day: "... always shall your walk be down hill and the winds to your backs".

He would never forget Miss Sweeney.

1921

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END 1-28-07

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jerry vilhotti