For Christmas, I got a Voice Changer science kit. I had to put it together, and my Dad helped me. We had to connect a resistor. We had to connect the transistor. We had to connect the capacitor. Then we had to connect the speaker. Then we had to put on the grill and test it. Then we had to put it all together.

This is me saying “Don’t make me destroy your planet.”

This is me helping my Dad try. He makes a mistake at first.

Now playing: The Voice by Alan Parsons Project

One early morning Dad woke me up and told me to get dressed and get into my MLK day shirt, a.k.a. the work day shirt. I got up and we had some juice, went into the car. I brought a book and drawing pad. Dad brought a pillow in case I needed to take a nap.

Finally we got to Harland. We walked to the cafeteria. I got Trix, yogurt, some orange juice, a donut. I got introduced to a lot of people at Dad’s work. They told jokes to each other which I didn’t get, so when they laughed, I politely laughed too, even though I didn’t get it.

After that Tim Tuff got on the microphone and started talking about what we were going to do. We got into our groups and drove all the way to the school.

This picture is a group picture before we started. The principal took it. Dad and I are in the middle of the front row. I am holding a broom pretending to clean up.

We finally got our jobs to get started. We got paint, and when Dad was going over, I snuck a $100 grand candy bar. Then I rushed over to him to catch up. Our assignment was to go and paint the boys and girls third grade bathroom. It did not smell good, but we had to ignore that and get to work.

Dad and I finally agreed after all the ideas I had to paint grass all around the girls bathroom, put in some flowers, and put in a dragon fly. Here is Dad and I painting the grass.

This is what I was thinking of and what we did.

The boys room smelled even worse. But we had to really ignore it and get to work. Dad was thinking of doing a mountain of climbing dinosaurs. I thought, nah. We should do hands all around for a border, reaching up to different kinds of sport balls. But that would take too long, so this boy came in and helped us do the hand prints. I was in charge of the right hand, and he was in charge of the left hand. I did not like the paint all slimy on my hand.

This is what we did. I think we did a pretty good job. Two thumbs up.

The principal told Tim Tuff that I should be the next CEO.

Futurelink: Claire on Harland Wall