Watertown, NY, USA . "Public Square" (vintage, date unknown) but the monument is honoring veterans of the American Civil War so the date of the image is late 1800s

Sunday, December 31, 2017

(10:02 AM EST)
( My Mix on YouTube)
( current weather: sunny, -8*F, no wind chill)
  One of my Facebook friends post a photo of an old 5 & dime store......as I scrolled through my memories of shopping at 5 & dimes but got snagged on the memory of Neisner's...... I'll get to why the memories of Neisner's keyed this memory later.....
  I had a love/hate relationship with my High School English Teacher, we both loved a good verbal argument, and we both hated the other's point of view..Sometimes we would deliberately take contrary views on purpose ......anyways we had to write a senior term paper...the rest of the seniors got to choose their topic.....mine was assigned...
  I had to write a paper on Utopian theory......the catch was I could only use 5 assigned book...now I already had.....Plato's "Republic", Augustine's "City of God" and Marx's "A Communist Manifesto" in my private library......and borrowed More's "Utopia" from the school library.....but the 5th....H.G.Wells' "A Modern Utopia" was a problem.......after doing a search at the local branch of the Buffalo and Erie County Library System discovered there was only one copy in the whole system.....and that was in the reserved room at the main library....and could not be checked out......nuts......
  So I took a day during Spring vacation....had my dad drop me off on his way to work......and spent the day in the reserve reading room taking notes...Thankfully I have a killer reading rate and was able to complete the book in under 8 hours.....
  But again why Neisner's keying the memory...there was a Neisner's close by with a lunch counter......I was 18 years old.......a boy needs to eat.... but this reminds me that "The Palace Burlesque" was just down the street from the library....who would of thunk it...2 educational institutions that close to each other....and no although I was 18 and could have gotten in...just didn't have the time.....
  Well I wrote the paper and turned it in.....most of the other students papers were in the 8 to 10 page range.....my was about 25 pages...don't recall exactly.....after all that was going on 52 years ago.....
  Well anyways I got my paper back...I got a 95/100 on it....which was the highest grade Mr. W every gave but in red letters "Well written and I don't agree with a word of it"......which set of an exchange of written point and counterpoint...and a few debates in class......but I must say I did respect him...although we never agreed, he never marked me down for my opinions, only the way I presented them...An honest man....he was dead wrong about many things IMHO.....but he was a good teacher
  the funny thing about this I was taking World History in college about a year later and one section of the study was on utopian theories.....and Doctor C...asked if anyone had read the "Modern Utopia" by H.G. Wells and mine was the only hand that went up in a class of 100+.......said he "I've been waiting 10 years to discuss this book with someone" he dismissed class and we spent most of an hour in discussion on the book.......Thanx Mr. W 

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