Dateline Normal: "The Normal Bell Curve"----FICTION

Well it's graduation time again. Time to pencil in all the graduation parties into the schedule. Time to cut back on the normal eating so as to fit in all those goodies, like cake and ice cream, chips and etc.....

I've been getting a lot of announcements lately, and frankly....I am a little confused. One graduate is a valedictorian. But there four in a class of 125. Something has changed over the years. Just to do a reality check, I picked up the phone and called my old friend, Herman, the countryboy lawyer in Normal, Mn.. As you will recall, Normal is up North on Hwy 10 in Minnesota and just south of Garrison. A small fishing village.

I was running out of cell phone minutes, so I just blurted it out:

"Herman, how in the heck could one get 4 valedictorians out of a class of 125? What is goin on? What is your experience up there in Normal?

Herman just let out a big bellylaugh.

"Shucks, Wolfman, (that's what he always called me) we solved that problem 30 years ago. That was 1977 I recall, and that year we had 30 valedictorians out of a class of 90. It was real messy. The state scholarship came down to a tardy pass. It was a real small difference between them all!

What happened to change things, Herman?, I asked.

"Shucks, Wolfman, that was real easy. We just got fed up with buying all those plaques. It simply blew the budget category. So we came up with a real simple solution.

"What?", I asked.

"Well, in our town square, we have a bell. We just put all the graduates test scores down on a piece of paper, and put the bell on them. That way there is no fooling around. Just a perfect bell curve. Just the natural way. It is real simple!

"Do you mean you have only ONE valedictorian?"

"Exactly", Herman replied.

Wow. Thank goodness I am back in good old Wisconsin. Where we do NOT have a bell in the center of town. Where we do NOT have just one valedictorian. And where we can have as many valedictorians as can fit on the stage!