The adventure begins.  I meet the playwright.  She is ten.  All bangled and swathed in pink velour- a mass of curly brown hair.  A little nervous-a whole lot of just being 10-and just turning ten at that.

Our theme is the 70’s.  I remember them well.  Our interview begins- she has to interview me in order to begin her process- so we all can begin our process.  Confronted by a ten year old and going back, back,back to the 70’s.  In one hour, I sat and answered all the questions honestly ( I mean, you can’t lie to a ten year old)- I relived my 70’s.  And I remember them well.

We were still living in Chapel Hill in the early 70’s.  I was a blue jean bell bottomed peace tee shirt wearing 7 year old.  I loooved the Jackson 5, Motown- anything Motown-The Mamas and The Papas, Bobby Sherman, Love America Style and HR PufNStuf. Don’t get me started on Jack Wild and his magic flute.  I would have died for Jack Wild.  I got his latest album for my 8th birthday.  Signed personally by Jack Wild himself;unfortunately due to his touring schedule-Jack Wild would not be attending my party.  At least that was what the note said.  The note I got with the album.  The note was from Jack’s tour manager.  Funny how his handwriting was almost identical to my mother’s. 

 My room was painted purple with a pink high shag rug.  L-O-V-E was painted in matching pink above my headboard.  In an arc.  Perfectly spaced-with flowers between each letter.  I was a hippie child.  We all were. All of us on Overland Drive.  Barefoot and free.  We all attended the same elementary school- an experimental pilot school.

“Put the kids in learning pods” -someone with forward educational thinking said.  “This way we can transition the learning per pod”.”  Sectional pod learning. So there we were, in a loft sort of learning environment-separated by pods-all borrowing the same SRA learning systems, watching the news on TV and being randomly observed by students in the educational doctorate program at UNC.  Oh, and, we did not have desks either. We sat at tables. Big round tables.

“Desks are too constricting”, said the same person.  “Tables invite learning”.   This is what happens when you grow up in a progressive university town. Everything is up for observation.

I loved pod learning.  Being the social hippie bee I was- even back then- I loved that I could look around the loft and seek out my friends-and during snack we could all roam the pods.  This was also great for seeing who was breaking bad and getting into trouble.  Like Russell.  I liked Russell.  Come to think of it- he looked a little like Jack Wild-back in the Artful Dodger days.  I saw “Oliver” a real lot.   Russell-poor Russell- he was always causing trouble. That Russell.  Once, he took his pencil-just to see what would happen-and stuck into the light socket that controlled the entire light source for our pod area.  The jolt knocked him back and knocked out all the power in the entire pod.  Lights out.  It was instantly quiet-when normally our pods were a buzz with activity.  I will confess-that was a major distraction for those of us who, very barracuda like, are always drawn to the shiny,noisy side of life.  But that said, Russell, never came back to our pod.  His quest for learning was put to better use somewhere else.  From that day forward, he had to ride the short bus to school.  He was enrolled in the”other school”.  I was in the pod system until we made a big move to another town in North Carolina. Rumor was the pod system was not all that effective anyway and was done away with the year after we left.  Foreward thinking education person thought otherwise.

Just being asked by a ten year old:  “so, um,what was your favorite song from the 70’s?”  is enough-but then being forced to choose?  

By next week, my playwright will have her script ready and we will have our first rehearsal.  Based on some of her questions and some of my answers- I think the show will be about a groovy hippie girl who loves cats and somehow, throughout the day,  lost her blue jean bell bottoms while singing Muskrat Love and getting her ears pierced with Erica from down the block whose parents were opera singers.  Or something like that?

I can’t wait.

Now to write my letter to the Town Council and push for pod learning.

On second thought?  Never mind.