TAMPA — The GOP convention brought us back to our grammar-school days. The Three R’s. The difference being that in Tampa it’s Romney, Ryan and Republican.

So, a couple of the players:

John Boehner said: “I’m from 12 children, and my father ran a bar. So what am I doing in Congress? . . . Welcome to America.” Then, utilizing USA’s good old e pluribus unum-one-for-all-and-all-for-one democratic way, the Speaker ducked out a super-private guarded entrance held by his security chorus line and into a chauffeured car. We’re all equal, only some of us are more equal than others.

George Pataki addressed the assemblage in Spanish. Why? Because everyone’s clawing after the Latin vote. Were Bloomberg here, he’d warn Puerto Rican delegates to avoid those mucho grande sodas. So, Pataki’s Espanol? Didn’t exactly sound like Penelope Cruz, but not bad.

Backstage at the Convention Center I ran into John McCain. With his wife, Cindy. So, senator, will your side win this one? The answer was a shouted “Yes!” He then stopped to freeze a smile into a passing camera. McCain’s mom, by the way, is 102 and has tea every week with her friend Greta Van Susteren.

My attention was grabbed by a female in purple with stiff frozen blond hair that appeared to be welded on. Callista, the most recent Mrs. Newt Gingrich. Not smiling.

Washington lawyer John Coale and I were guests in RNC Chairman Reince Priebus’ fifth-floor skybox overlooking the convention floor. I asked when Priebus got involved in politics. “Practically in kindergarten,” he said. “I was raised in it and always heard it. I grew up listening to it. My grandfather, born in Greece, passionately loved this country.”

Alongside a bunch of tureens on the fifth skybox level was radio personality Laura Ingraham. So where would she rather be tonight? “Palm Beach . . . maybe Hawaii.” A voice behind us then whispered: “Don’t ask for a drink. It’s cheap stuff. It’s what we call fund-raiser wine.”

Short on celebrities, who maybe don’t want to come out as Republicans, this convention’s long on fashion — like a guy’s plastic black lace-up shoes with gum soles. Suit jackets with creases down the sleeve. Ladies with behinds that reach Rhode Island wedged inside tight polyester. Mini. Flowered yet. There’s little to write about besides candidates who part their hair over the ear and flap the remaining three strands sideways, so one Huffington Post reporter was interviewing a New York Post cleaning lady.

Jarring notes here are being at Tampa’s huge hoo-hah rah-rah when the TV is showing New Orleans. Pom poms and boola boola don’t meld with floods and destruction.

Another problem is the help monitoring the bodies invading this quiet city. Lacking enough local police, outsiders have been hired. They don’t know the terrain. Never been here before. Can’t answer questions. They’re unable to assist masses of visitors who, outside their familiar terrain, are lost.

Nobody knows which way to go, where’s their hotel, what direction to head. Due to security, roads are shut, barriers erected, vehicles banned. Weary, laden with computers, cells, notepads, equipment, late at night after running around a whole day, you must walk, walk, walk.

My car couldn’t proceed beyond a Sheraton, so that became my focal point. One 10:30 p.m., I left some entrance of the giant convention complex, which normally houses hockey games, and, totally topsy-turvy, didn’t know which direction to head. I asked a policeman. He didn’t know. He asked the hotel’s address. I didn’t know. There’s more than one Sheraton.

Pulling a crumpled map from his pocket — something that looked like first-graders drew it in show ’n’ tell — he said, “Where’s it might be?” It’s dark. He used a flashlight. I had no idea. I told him the street. He couldn’t locate it. He’d never heard of it. My hands were full, so I recited my driver’s telephone and asked would he phone him for me.

He snapped: “No. You are talking to a government official. I can not make calls to unfamiliar, unsecure numbers,” and let me walk off alone, lost, into the blackness. And I’d hurt my foot and was limping.

The gossip: Before hitting Charlotte next week to grab a microphone to Oh-Boy-Obama, Bill Clinton toured Africa for his foundation. Cape Town, Rwanda, Uganda, Mozambique. He built schools. He opened hospitals. He took along Chelsea.

The jokes. Why Hillary picked Chappaqua to live? Because Chappaqua is Indian for “separate bedrooms”. . . and . . . “MSNBC? It’s got more letters than viewers.”

The memories. August 2000’s convention. Los Angeles. VP Al Gore squeezing and kissing Tipper. Their marriage has since gone the way of his career . . . CNN’s Larry King presiding. Now, not . . . At the very next outdoor party table to me, Brad Pitt nuzzling wife Jennifer Aniston. So into her I could barely look away and swallow my gorgonzola. OK?

So I say that as loyal, devoted, flag-waving patriotic Americans, let us fervently hope that Democrats and Republicans stop accusing one another of ineptitude and we all go back to civilized behavior — accusing the other side of lying.

Everyone: Have a nice few days off for Labor Day. I’m back right after that to bother you once again — this time from hip-hip-hooray North Carolina.