Why so Serious?

The story goes that Barry was a very serious kid. Apparently, his first grade teacher was concerned that he was too serious. What does too serious look like for a 6 and 7 year old?

As a teacher, I enjoy kids that make me laugh, and many times the ones that make me laugh are the serious ones. Last week I had a student tell me that she thought one of our volunteers was  from ‘Sweetland.’  She wasn’t too far off the map, and I didn’t have the heart to correct her.  We had a whole conversation about different accents and languages, but constantly came back to our volunteer’s accent from Sweetland.

We have a collection of Barry’s Childhood Memories on video from his Uncle Bill. I love getting them out and watching them….they are hilarious. A couple of weeks ago Brian and Darcy came over for the night and we got to watch them together. Brian cruising quickly in and out of focus like a bullet. Barry, the older brother, behaving, well, like an older brother trying to get Brian to keep pushing him in the wagon or share grapes, certainly not looking too serious by my standards. 

Looking through the HBHQ photo archives, I’m finding that there are many, many, many more dorky pictures of me than there are of Barry. Maybe being serious means that you always look cute in pictures…I’ll have to keep that in mind next time I mug for a photo wearing hot pink overalls.