The Daily Fib

I don't remember how it got started: it was, after all, a long time ago that I was in sixth grade. I sat in Row Five in English, the subject that came easiest to me so afforded me lots of free time. Apparently it did the rest of the row, also. Either that or they just didn't do their work.

Somebody on the row (possibly me, but I don't remember actually) wrote a funny "news" story about the school and passed it along the row. Somebody else added an advertisement to the page, and somebody else wrote a personals ad. When that sheet was filled up, somebody started a new one. Row Four got in on the game within the next few days, and soon we had a sheaf of handwritten newspaper. Somebody found a folder for it. And somebody -- me, I'm pretty sure -- titled it The Daily Fib.

The Fib seemed to last for weeks, but then again, we were only twelve and thirteen and there was more time in the world back then. We did fill up that folder, though: we were a self-organized news team with a steady stream of contributions. People would hand me pages all through the day, and in English we'd pass them back and forth and put them in the folder. Mrs. Lawrence couldn't possibly have not noticed, but I don't remember that she ever stopped us. Maybe she was impressed with a spontaneous project among kids who couldn't be bothered to keep their own schoolwork in order. Or maybe, since it was the end of the day, she was just glad we were quiet.

For every new page, I wrote out the masthead and listed the "editors." I didn't know what an editor did, but knew that newspapers had them. So everybody who contributed was an "editor." I think there were about seven on the paper, and no reporters. I'm pretty sure my name was first. I always was a follower in school, so the fact that I, as the self-proclaimed writer of the group, was sort of in charge, was pretty heady stuff.

The content of the paper ran along the lines of a classifed ad for a bike: "FOR SALE: Bike. Great condition! Needs tires, wheels, seat, handlebars, chain, and sprockets. Otherwise it's all yours!" Practically SNL for sixth graders.

I remember one submission being a news story about two friends who were "going together." Somebody wrote it and then drew a picture of stick figures. The picture was supposed to be a photograph of the girl standing on a street corner and the boy giving her money. (We knew very well what that entailed.) Since I also had a reputation for drawing at the time -- I outgrew the reputation when my drawing skill peaked at age 14 -- I was asked to redraw the "photograph." I did. I made the girl rather well-endowed, as I recall. This girl didn't sit on Row Five; she was on like Row Two or Three. So it was a day or so before she saw the picture.

In the ensuing editorial squabble, I pointed out that somebody else had originally drawn the picture. That somebody else replied that HER picture was just a lot of sticks and you couldn't tell what was going on. I removed the article, and I sincerely hope that The Fib apologized in person. I'm still apologizing, mentally, twenty years later.

What happened to The Fib? Eventually the notebook came to me for safekeeping. A year or so later, I leafed through it and was embarrassed by what we'd written. So I threw it away.

Those who remembered it from the year before were irritated at me. I'm irritated at me, too. But it's likely for the best. Some things, like your seventh-grade crush and your favorite childhood cartoon, survive best in fuzzy memory.

So here's to the fond, fuzzy memory of The Daily Fib.

-- SJ