Hatched

I woke up one day in grammar school,

Shot like a rocket, into the sky,

Fourth grade was polio and Indians;

Sixth, I learned how airplanes fly.

I sadly learned in 7^th grade,

Some presidents unfairly die,

Eighth grade introduced the Beatles,

My ninth grade friends were getting high.

Martin Luther died my sophomore year,

Bobby Kennedy , was shot too…

My musical heroes started dying,

The carnage seemed far from through.

Farm workers united in my Junior year,

Integration laws brought forced bussing,

I couldn’t fathom one more injustice

Without anger and heartfelt cussing.

My senior year,  the Vietnam War,

 We burnt our bras and draft cards,

The hippie movement was coming on,

Status quos broke away as chards.

My college began with a man on the moon,

A student at Kent State was shot…

The draft was now a lottery draw,

Hell is what the low numbers got.

We questioned all our parent’s thoughts,

We even doubted god and heaven…

One by one more heroes fell,

At the ripe old age of twenty-seven.

Shell-shocked and on the safe side,

I dropped out for fifteen years,

Living the dream on a ramshackle farm

Hunting  incubator parts at Sears.

Forty years later this old man,

Finally gave the incubator away…

Now witnessing a bright young man,

Hatching pheasants and quail today.