Junk mail and the world's smartest chimp.
I might have mentioned that my mom was in the Parent-Teacher Association throughout my K-12 career. She even served as PTA president at two of the schools I attended. As a result, she amassed a lot of junk mail originally addressed to the principal. Much of it advertised lecturers, theatrical acts and other performers whose value to a child's education could be considered marginal at best. Officially this stuff probably went to her because the principal thought the PTA might be open to sponsoring said "artist." Unofficially, I'll bet that the principal's secretary passed it off unopened because she was sick of hearing the boss complain about junk mail. I recently found a treasure trove of the stuff, stored away in a box labeled "PTA." It's a 40-year old time capsule loaded with what might once have been deemed acceptable reasons to pull kids out of spelling lessons. The most famous of those was Mr. Jiggs. I remember that he came to my gram
