Bill Marvel: Ciphering like Huck Finn

Until recently, meetings of the Conway School Board were notable for the salesmanship of one principal, whose enthusiastic boasting about the achievements of the system drowned out occasional allusions to minor shortcomings. We can always do better, ran the theme, but we’re really terrific already. The board and administrators would always respond with steady nodding that reminded me of a jostled shelf of bobble-head dolls.

No single person now fills that role of booster-in-chief, and the tendency to self-congratulation seems more diffuse. In the isolated exile of Zoom meetings the nodding is no longer visible, either, but in a metaphorical sense the heads are still bobbing.