Ice Machines, Elevators & Key Cards

I wasn't the only one to write about our jaunt to Springfield earlier this month. Ann did a short report at school, with enigmatic illustrations.

The top pic is Young Abe Lincoln reading a book. The bottom is Ann and the rest of us in the theater watching "Lincoln's Eyes," one of the two audio-visual shorts that the Abraham Lincoln Museum offers its visitors. Off at the right is one of its special effects: smoke from Civil War cannon fire. These things must have made an impression on her.

So did the hotels. In fact, if I remember my own childhood right, simply staying in a hotel or motel was big fun. Ann completely enjoyed the pools this time, but also the lesser pleasures of getting ice from the ice machine, riding the elevator, and opening the door with the key card, something I never did as a lad in the age of metal motel keys.

Note that the teacher, who wrote some praise in red ink, did not correct the misspelled "different" and the one-letter-off "museum." I don't want to read too much into that, but I suspect that it rests on an assumption that any correction at this age will discourage the wee writer from writing. I believe that's an erroneous assumption, because it makes no distinction between harshly berating a little kid for a small mistake, a counterproductive strategy, and more usefully pointing out the mistake without rubbing her nose in it. So I make certain to point out the mistakes. Ann doesn't need to be a professional writer or editor later in life, but she does need to know how to write and edit.