I’m Happy: Hooray!

I love Virgin America Airlines.

I like the perky crew, the satellite TV, the under-seat plugs, the non-Unitedness. But like turned to love today, when I was perusing their music offerings and discovered one of the playlist options is “Best of Schoolhouse Rock.”

They had me at Schoolhouse.

I learned everything I truly needed to know in the 1970s, on Saturday mornings, in 3-minute intervals between cartoons and Sid and Marty Kroft shows.

I am an editor today because of Grammar Rock. I can unpack my adjectives with ease, hook up words and phrases and clauses, and insert an interjection for excitement or emotion on a moment’s notice.

I learned to spell words by singing them. What grade were we in when, during a weekly spelling test, the tapping of little fingers on 30-odd desks was perfectly in sync: “electricity, e-lec-tric-ity”?

I know about the Revolutionary minutemen who were ready on the move, that taxation without representation is not fair, and how a bill becomes a law. And I’ve known these things and more since I was, like, 3. When I was lucky enough to have dinner with the president of the ACLU a few years ago, I was able to sing her the preamble to the US constitution. She was impressed.

Seriously, Schoolhouse Rock had more impact on my life than any other single thing. And now I can brush up on language and history at 30,000 feet. I’m excited: Wow! And glad: Hey!