"Charlie"

Each of us have our routines that we go through each day.  I try to leave the school each morning at the same time, each student expecting me at the time they have become familiar with.  Most mornings I pass the same cars that are also keeping their appointed schedules.  There is the red car that I always meet going south as I go north.  She always passes with a friendly wave and a warm smile.  There is always that car, with a Tennessee tag, that flies past as if they are trying to qualify for the Daytona Five hundred.  The routines continue with the children.  The Three Stooges are always running around pushing and shoving each other as they wait for the bus.  There are the students that always wait till the last minute to run to the bus from the house and those that are putting on their shoes on the porch so you will see them and not go off and leave them.  Then there is the mother in her house coat that sticks her arm out the door and holds up one finger as if it were a flare to signal that her children will again take longer than anyone else on the route to get to the bus.  Then there is the daily routine of Charlie.  When I stop to pick up one second grader Charlie is there to greet his master as he runs from the house to the bus.  In the afternoon Charlie is there again to greet him as he gets off the bus.  Rain or shine Charlie is a constant.  One morning as the second grader emerged from the house Charlie was wagging is little stubby tail so hard that it was shaking his entire body.  It brightened my day and started it off with a laugh.  I didn’t know goats could wag their tails like that.