Poem inspires student to rise from mediocrity

Printed in the Rapid City Journal November 7, 2001.

There was once a pretty good student

Who sat in a pretty good class

And was taught by a pretty good teacher

Who always let pretty good pass.

He wasn’t terrific at reading

He wasn’t a whiz-bang at math

But for him, education was leading

Straight down a pretty good path.

He didn’t find school too exciting

But he wanted to do pretty well

And he did have some trouble with writing

And nobody had taught him to spell.

When doing arithmetic problems

Pretty good was regarded as fine.

Five plus five didn’t always add up to 10.

A pretty good answer was nine.

The pretty good class that he sat in

Was part of a pretty good school.

And the student was not an exception.

On the contrary, he was the rule.

The pretty good school that he went to

Was there in a pretty good town.

And nobody there seemed to notice

He could not tell a verb from a noun.

The pretty good student in fact was

Part of a pretty good mob.

And the first time he knew what he lacked was

When he looked for a pretty good job.

It was then, when he sought a position

He discovered that life could be tough.

And he soon had a sneaky suspicion

Pretty good might not be good enough.

The pretty good town in our story

Was part of a pretty good state.

Which had pretty good aspirations,

And prayed for a pretty good fate.

There was once a pretty good nation

Pretty proud of the greatness it had.

Which learned much too late

If you want to be great

Pretty good is, in fact, pretty bad.