Article July 25, 1994 Issue

For children

Wagonload of awful or "chariots of God"?

Judith Hardy Olson

"My , what a 'wagon-load of offal'!" That's what Grandma said when I told her about my terrible morning at school. Offal means garbage, but I didn't know that. I had never heard that word before. So I thought Grandma had said "a wagonload of awful."

"It sure was awful," I said. First we didn't get to go on our field trip to the zoo. There was some big mix-up and the bus never showed up. So we were stuck in that stuffy room. Miss Reed, our teacher, didn't know what to do with us, so she gave us a spelling test. And I missed the word defense. Then all during recess this big kid in sixth grade named Alvie kept spitting into his water pistol and squirting us girls with it. And when I was walking to Grandma's house for lunch, a truck hit the only mud puddle in the whole street. It was right by me, and it splashed gook all over my shoes.

After I finished telling her all this, Grandma was quiet for a few minutes, and we ate our soup. Then she said: "Well, you may have come home from school in a 'wagonload of awful,' but you're going back in a 'chariot of God.' "

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"Generation X"—challenging the notion of life without purpose
July 25, 1994
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