Paying Respects to a Worn Piece of Linoleum

     I want to make amends to a worn piece of brown linoleum I short-changed in a writing contest fifty years ago...

     Six of us bunched around a tiny table in an airless room in our high school. We'd each been crowned worthy of entering an annual writing contest. After a few silent seconds, the monitor pointed and said, "Describe that piece of tile in the corner."
     "That piece of brown, worn-down piece of nothing in the corner? Are you kidding me? I've got big thoughts I want to share!"
     I was miffed. Picked up my #2 pencil and wrote something like, "It's brown, ugly, dirty and needs to be replaced." And put my pencil down. 
     Years later, I still think about that little tile and my lack of insight and the disrespect I showed it. We don't get worn down, dirty, and sometimes look a little worse for wear from living an aloof life protected from the elements of a hard life. What I came to know and was too immature to understand then, is that little ragged bit of tile was part of a team of equally ragged tiles that had seen the bottom-side of thousands of students' shoes, giving us a safe and supportive place to walk as we set about learning the skills for making it in life.
     My high school is about to be torn down, so the little brown tile is coming to the end of its life. Sounds strange but I wish I could rescue it and give it a new home, where it could retire and remember a life well spent. (275 words)