Two Conflicting Notions

When I was a child in Mrs. Bowers' class, my parents and I had different ideas about what to do when I returned from school on short fall and winter days. I wanted to use the dwindling daylight to go out and play, while Mom and Dad insisted I do fifteen minutes of homework before I did anything else. That seemed so wrong to me because our taskmaster in the classroom had given us impossible assignments, like diagramming one hundred complex sentences that literally no classmate ever finished, even with both parents doing the actual work. That little bit of time might amount at best to three sentences down and ninety-seven to go on an assignment no student ever completed but that time wasted on breaking down sentences burned the last light of day. In the event, Mom and Dad always prevailed, and I rarely had the chance to go out and play. I do not even remember how to diagram anymore after half a century despite the harsh sentence of excessive sentences to diagram, but that little sunshine at the end of the short days is gone too and will never come back.