There was once a pretty good

student

Who sat in a pretty good class

And was taught by a pretty good

teacher,

Who always let pretty good pass.

He wasn’t terrific at reading,

He wasn’t a whiz-bang at math,

But for him, education was

leading

Straight down a pretty good path.

He didn’t find school too exciting,

But he wanted to do pretty well,

And he did have some trouble

with writing,

And nobody had taught him to

spell.

When doing arithmetic problems,

Pretty good was regarded as fine.

Five plus five didn’t always add up

to 10,

A pretty good class that he sat

in

Was part of a pretty good school.

And the student was not an

exception,

On the contrary, he was the rule.

The pretty good school that he

went to

Was there in pretty good town.

And nobody there seemed to

notice

He could not tell a verb from a

noun.

The pretty good student in fact

was

Part of a pretty good mob.

And the first time he knew what

he lacked was

When he looked for a pretty good

job.

It was then, when he sought a

position,

He discovered that life could be

tough.

And he soon had a sneaky

suspicion

Pretty good might not be good

enough.

The pretty good town in our story

Was part of a pretty good state,

Which had pretty good aspirations,

And prayed for a pretty good fate.

There was once a pretty good

nation,

Pretty proud of the greatness it

had.

If you want to be great,

Pretty good is, in fact, pretty bad.

From “The Osgood File,”

copyright 1986, CBS Inc.