Ides of March, indeed

One of the seventh graders asked me this morning if he could pinch everyone else, since he was the only one wearing green.

"It's not St. Patrick's Day yet, kiddo," I told him. "But it is the Ides of March!"

"What's that?"

I asked if anyone knew the story of Julius Caesar, of what happened to him in the fateful month of March. Together, we determined that it was, indeed, not St. Patrick's day today. Instead, it's a day of strange commemoration, a day in which we need to make sure our friends are truly our friends so they don't stab us to death in the town square.

There are such good life lessons in literature.