Pretty Good

PRETTY GOOD

by Leonard Rizzo

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 whizbang 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 trouble with reading

And nobody taught him to spell

In doing arithmetic problems

Pretty good was regarded as fine

Five and five needn’t always add up ten

A pretty good answer was nine

The pretty good student was happy

With standards that were in effect

And nobody thought it was sappy

If his answers were not quite correct

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 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 saw the position

He discovered that life could be tough

And he soon had a sneaky suspicion

That pretty good might not be good enough

The pretty good town in this 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

But it learned much too late

If you want to be great

Pretty good is in fact pretty bad.

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