The greatest honor of all honors at Fanny Hillers School (K-6) was to serve as a Junior Leader. This honor only befell to the members of the 6th grade class. On the first day of school in 6th grade, I got a slip of paper welcoming me to the ranks of the Junior Leaders and assigning me the duty of guarding over the bicycle rack. I knew this was a distinct honor.
The bicycle rack was located next to the school and should have been heavily used but the arcane rules of the school forbid the use of this piece of infrastructure for students who lived within a mile of the school. Since a mile was less than the distance most students lived from the school, and those few students who lived more than a mile away could take the school bus, it was, by mandate, an unused facility. Filled with slots for twenty bicycles, it was, sadly an empty encumbrance on the sight of the school grounds. I myself, living on Kaplan Avenue, a block away, was unable to take my own bicycle to school.
As a junior leader, I had to submit a report every week on the status of my station and responsibilities. On Friday afternoons, the weekly meetings of the Junior Leaders necessitated not only the submission of said report but an oral reading of said report to the other Junior Leaders and the school principal.
There was a notation of the report at the end where the student had to evaluate the status of his station with a checkmark besides the comments excellent, fair, good, or poor. Since it was difficult to evaluate a week where nothing happened, no bicycles entered or housed at the facility, I chose to use the neutral determinative "good" to evaluate the week. Certainly "excellent" would be overstating the case and fair or poor might also be inappropriate.
My report was sadly consistent. "There were no bicycles this week. The bicycle rack was good." Around the beginning of October I noticed a few chuckles from the audience at my report.
I had accepted my fate, like any civil servant being ensconced in a cushy job. Then my life changed forever. A Monday morning in early November a girl drove up to the bicycle rack. We chatted and to the surprise of all the Junior Leaders, that Friday I proudly announced, "There was one bicycle this week, the bicycle rack was good."
She was a regular user of the bicycle rack for a while. After that I don't know. In January I was assigned to a street corner and for the rest of the school year, the bicycle rack was an unguarded edifice. I suppose the bicycle rack continued to be good.
