A BITTER LESSON

Recently when reminiscing on the phone with ol’ Fredonia classmate Barb, she asked something like the following: “Do you remember in 5th grade when Mrs. C_____ whupped up on Jerry A_____?”

“Who doesn’t?” I responded. “Everybody remembers it.”

Now, I’d loved my kindly teachers from 1st through 4th grades, but Mrs. C. was an old sourpuss who nobody liked. She had this permanent facial expression that looked like she was smelling something rancid--like her teaching ability. Maybe it was her own personality that was stinking up the place. I don’t know.

Mrs. C. had zero tolerance of just about everybody, especially Jerry, a big lug of a kid who’d been held back a year in a country school before transferring to Mound. Their showdown occurred one day when he had a foot resting on the edge of the metal cubbyhole area below our desk seats. Sounds like nothing major, but to Mrs. C. not having both feet on the floor was a cardinal sin, I guess, so, in her pissy way, she told him to remove his foot from the desk edge.

And Jerry, gulp, refused. He didn’t say anything back to her, but the foot remained in its resting place. More than once, she repeated her instruction, and each time the foot remained motionless, as did the glare on his face. Part of me was thinking, “Good for you, Jerry.” But the other part thought, “Just put your foot down,” afraid of what she might do to him.

The disagreement at a stand-off, Mrs. C. got a yardstick and began whacking on Jerry’ s stubborn foot--so hard that pieces of it broke and flew across the room. The yardstick became three rulers.

Now, I was really getting scared, but Jerry obviously didn’t share my fear because the foot still didn’t budge. And she got the same response from him when she told him he was going to the principal’s office. Nothing. So, she summoned the principal to come to the classroom.

What happened next was even scarier. The entire class, except Jerry, of course, was escorted into an empty adjacent room. We sat on the floor, quiet, waiting to hear the execution that was sure to happen next door. I don’t know what Jerry got whacked with, probably a board, but it sounded like it hurt and I wanted nothing of it. Next thing we knew, the door flung open and there was Mrs. C., looking even angrier than ever before, pushing Jerry into the room by the back of his neck. His reddened face fought back tears as he stumbled into the room. Point made.

Looking back, I wish I’d stood up for Jerry or tried to calm down Mrs. C.--done something. It was mean, pure and simple, in my 11-year-old eyes, but there were no child abuse laws to protect kids back then. Sure, Jerry should just have removed his foot to avoid the scrape in the first place, but what was the big deal? She could have overlooked it. Weren’t there more important battles to conquer?

Sadly, I remember little else about 5th grade except this incident. The only lesson Mrs. C. taught me was to watch out for teachers with crappy attitudes and yardsticks. I shrank away in the back of the room and avoided making eye contact with her as much as possible. If I could just make it through May, 1960, then I could put my feet anywhere I damn well wanted. It was a long year.