Pretty Good

[1monster]

A Pretty Good Poem
by Charles Osgood

There once was 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 to exciting
But he wanted to do pretty well,
He did have some trouble with spelling
And nobody had taught him to spell.

When doing arithmetic problems
Pretty good was regarded as fine!
Five plus five needn't always add up to ten,
A pretty good answer was nine.

The 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 a pretty good town
And nobody seemed to notice
He could not tell a verb from a noun.

The pretty good student was in fact
Part of a pretty good mob.
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 soon he 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 once was a pretty good nation,
Pretty proud of the greatness it had,
Which learned much too late,
If you want to be great
Pretty good is, in fact, pretty bad.