What I Learned Growing Up in Wilkes-Barre

1. Don't leave your prized violin outside the band room of the high school.

2. Don't count on the river always staying in its banks.

3. Wear warm clothing to football games.

4. Hot chocolate can burn your tongue.

5. Drive as if you are in slow motion on icy roads.

6. Mountaintop used to be one word.

7. Football is not the most important happening in life.

8. The ethnic groups are tight.

9. Everybody isn't your friend all the time.

10. If you live across the street from a baseball field, your car will be dented and your windows will be broken.

11. School is not cancelled for a snow day unless the bus can't make it down Bear Creek Hill.

12. Let the Major Domo pull your chair out for you.

13. Algebra teachers can be drunk in school.

14. The basketball coach can rough kids up in the classroom and get away with it.

15. Students can make student teachers cry.

16. Friends can make your life miserable. True friends are hard to find.

17. It's not what you know, it's who you know.

18. Culm banks smell bad and real spring water tastes good.

19. It's cooler in the mountains.

20. To get a job in the school district, you need to pay off somebody.

21. Sometimes people you don't like can care about you more than you know.

22. You're allowed to change your mind.