Code of Conduct. 287/365

Apparently these go against it. Maddie brought these into class to share a bit of interesting Virginia history with her teacher and her classmates. These are civil war ammunition pieces recovered from a Virginia forest. Anyway, it is interesting in itself that this is what the Civil War soldiers used for ammunition. The gun powder was pressed into the hole in the bottom and once in the rifle, the powder was lit. The other story told to us is that the soldiers found it difficult and time consuming to write letters using a quill and ink. They found that the lead in these ammunition pieces wrote on paper much like their quill and ink did and began using their ammunition to write their letters. You can see the shiny lead on the pointed "bullet" where we tested this theory. It really does write.

Once Maddie told her teacher what they were she was told to "put them away, they go against the code of conduct" - I guess this is similar to a zero-tolerance policy. She never was able to show this primitive ammunition to the students, nor was she able to tell the story of how they were also used to write letters to loved-ones.

I asked Maddie if she also told the teacher that she had gun powder in her back pocket since that was the only was these would be dangerous. Maddie said yeah and I also had my rifle in my backpack. I'm through ranting now, but I'm not completely over this ridiculousness.