Alma Mater

Lisa and I still keep in touch with a lot of friends from high school, some of which we’ve known since grade school. We were all trying to remem­ber today if there was an alma mater anthem for our High School. As none of us were par­tic­u­larly rah-​rah back then, we couldn’t remember.

Three of us, how­ever, could remem­ber the words to our grade school anthem – which is a bit shock­ing, con­sid­er­ing the last time I heard it was some­time in 1988, in the fifth grade. I think they forced us to sing this thing during assem­blies, through­out the school years:

Coun­try Park­way is our school,
where we learn to obey the rules.
We do our best and take great pride,
with our Country’s flag flying high.

Here we work and here we play
Learn­ing new things every­day.
From north to south and east to west,
Our Coun­try Park­way is the best.

Creepy, in its empha­sis on con­for­mity – espe­cially for a fairly pro­gres­sive public school district.