Where The Sidewalk Ends...

When I was in 6th and 7th grade I participated in UIL, which was this competition where kids who really like to do school work would compete in all types of school-y (yes this is a word..err) events and earn medals for doing amazing and basically being nerds. In 6th grade everyone did it because you got to spend a whole Saturday with all of your friends sitting at round tables playing cards, doing Mad Libs and eating junk food while waiting nervously for your event to be called. Basically, it was a big deal and you better believe that I had a blast. A list of some of the events you could participate in included:

Creative Writing
Prose/Poetry
Listening
Maps, Graphs, and Charts
Science
Math something or another
and a few other nerdy sounding things

My specialty was listening and Prose/Poetry with the occasional Maps, Graphs, and Charts thrown in. Then there was that one time they tried to get me to do Math and that did not go so well. For Prose and Poetry a person had to memorize an excerpt from a story or a poem. I was all about the poems. My absolute favorite poet in 6th grade was Shel Silverstein. He had the wackiest, funniest, and craziest poems. They also had catchy rhymes so it was fairly easy to memorize them. I thought I would share with you a poem from his book Where the Sidewalk Ends that I memorized for one of the UIL competitions in 6th grade.

Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too By: Shel Silverstein

Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too
Went for a ride in a flying shoe.
"Hooray!"
"What fun!"
"It's time we flew!"
Said Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.

Ickle was captain, and Pickle was crew
And Tickle served coffee and mulligan stew
As higher
And higher
And higher they flew,
Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.

Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too,
Over the sun and beyond the blue.
"Hold on!"
"Stay in!"
"I hope we do!"
Cried Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.

Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle too
Never returned to the world they knew,
And nobody
Knows what's
Happened to
Dear Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.


So there you go. I spent weeks on end memorizing poems like this so that I could go to a nerdy competition and win medals so I could parade them around showing off how good I was at really liking school. And yes, I can still recite many of these poems by heart today 8 years later.