Won't you believe it, it's just my luck (repeat)
No recess (repeat)
You"re in high school again (repeat) ---Kurt Cobain, from the Nirvana song School
So go the brief, but memory-provoking lyrics, to Kurt Cobain's song School off Nirvana's Bleach album. Although the late king of grunge rock reportedly had intended to vent his animosity toward high school in general with this piece, which happens to be one of my favorite Nirvana songs, I had a slightly different reaction to it...especially that part about "no recess". When I was in elementary school, we actually did have recess, which was the break from our academic classes in which we would go outside and play games and sports, more or less informally. But when I began going to junior high school (for my era in the seventh grade) and on throughout my "senior" years there, recess abruptly transformed itself into something they called "physical education", or phys-ed. The instructors tended to run their classes...at least for the boys...like military basic training, and the kids would have to smartly shout out during roll call the exact words "Here, Sir, dressed out!"...otherwise they'd better have a note ready to explain why not. Although I was generally athletically inclined and typically competitive, in no way did I see any of it as recess, so Kurt's song rang true in a special way to me. I remember that in the first grade...probably since we got out of school earlier in the day than the others...we didn't have recess. But then it occurred to me that from my seventh through twelfth years we didn't either...
