A couple more things I remember about education week before we move on to other things. There was one summer when the “New Kids on the Block” boy group came out with a new album. They were really hot that year and my kids (especially the girls) loved them. This was in the days when cassettes were still popular and so, just before we left to go west to education week, I bought the latest album on a cassette. Big mistake.
We played that cassette over and over as we travelled west. I’ll have to admit that I never really got tired of it. I liked New Kids also, but I’ll bet we played that cassette 15 or 20 times during that vacation.
Another stupid memory I have of education week was the year I decided to grow a beard. I think we have pictures somewhere of me in a full beard. I got a lot of comments at work and church about it. Beards are funny things. They are a real pain to grow, but after you have it for awhile, it’s not so bad and you actually start liking it. I don’t think I kept mine very long, but one summer, I had one when we went west.
I attended all the classes as normal and than, I think it was on Friday afternoon, after classes were done, we stopped at a store in Provo to buy some supplies for the trip back. This stranger came up to me in the store and asked me how I had liked Education Week. I had never seen her before, so I asked how she knew I’d been to Education Week. She said I had been in a couple of her classes and besides, I was the only guy attending Education Week who had a beard. I thought that was cool and it inspired me to keep the beard a little longer than I probably would have.
Dad