Visiting Memory Lane

Yesterday  one of my life-long friends and I visited someone we've been meaning to visit for over a year. As I told him in May, we better hurry, nobody's getting any  younger.

So off we went. She lives on the farm that belonged to her first husband's family. 

They married when she was twenty-one. She had a son when she was twenty-two. Her still-new husband was killed in France during World War II, which made her a widow at age twenty-three.

That baby is seventy-four years old today, widowed himself and caring for two adult disabled sons.

The reason we were visiting was, as we reminisced some months ago, we reckoned that she and one other were the only two teachers still living who taught us in grade school.

She concurred that she believed that to be so.

She is ninety-six and sharp as any tack. She not only remembers all her students, but their siblings, their mamas and daddies and grandparents, too.

She is a gold  mind of information.

She's read two of my books, she said. I waited a moment, but she said nothing else. "Um, what did you think?" I asked timidly.

She gave me that stern look I remember so well from forty-one years ago and replied, "I give you an A-."

I said, "Whew!"

And she burst into laughter. Later she said I had a gift with words.

She told her life story ( so far ): After she was widowed at age twenty-three, she did remarry. He was older than she, and had also been married. He had a son and a step-daughter. After  his second wife died, the step-daughter went to her mother's family, but she was desperately unhappy, because he was the only father she'd ever remembered and needed him still.

So, they kept her and raised her, too. 

Score so far is one son, one-step son and one might-as-well-be-daughter.

They had a good life for many years. Farmed. She taught school. Life was pretty good. They had two daughters and three sons.

We're up to eight kids now, if you are counting.

When their youngest was six years old and another son two weeks from graduating high school, this second husband died. He'd been bed fast for a year, and the youngest still only remembers him vaguely. And those memories are of his daddy in the bed, sick.

Two of her sons  have passed away. One  had a tractor accident shortly after he graduated high school. Another son taught for one
year before getting sick suddenly.

He died before the next school year started. Leukemia. She said back then they'd just started with using chemotherapy and it hastened his death instead of helping.

I remember both those young men well.

She told us one story about pigs that kept us riveted, and I ain't kidding.

This woman is one tough cookie. 

She broke her hip two years ago, so she uses one of those walkers on wheels that has a seat. She said when she fell, she realized what pain was. Thought childbirth was, but said it didn't compare to this. The doctor told her she was a high risk patient because of her age and she might not wake up from surgery. She did, though. She's lived to tell the tale.

She quit driving at age ninety-two because of neuropathy in her feet. She was afraid she'd hit the wrong pedal.

She sits on her enclosed porch a lot. There are humming bird feeders, bird feeders, flowers. Entertainment of the best kind. She reads, but not as much as she used to, for she goes to sleep too easily reading and that aggravates her.

We took her out to dinner (not lunch!). She ate well. Talked to people who stopped by the table. We talked a lot about classmates and she had a story to tell about many of them.

I was worn out by the time I got home. I bet my friend was too, as he had to drive back to Atlanta.

I wonder if our teacher was tired, too.

High School Annuals

I was looking through my mother's high school annual yesterday. The name was the Arrow Head and it was published in 1946.

Two things got my attention: The first was many of my mother's teachers were also my teachers. However; by the time I got them they was used up and near dead.

In Mother's annual, they are young, unlined, and many still unmarried. The bloom of youth was in their faces. They looked eager and  hopeful.

When I got 'em, middle age had severely advanced upon them, if not geriatrics. They had grown  kids, they were lined, grey haired and pooped.

No wonder I misuse the English language like I do. I thought it was because I'm from the south.

The second thing that struck me was how some people in the annual look just like people I have known. One girl in particular looks exactly like a lady I knew growing up who wasn't even from here.
I know  you could say, well the gene pool was mighty small in isolated areas back then, they were probably kin.

Maybe so,  but in looking at names and knowing folks, I don't think so.

Yet, a half dozen people were strikingly similar to another half dozen people I know.

But you know, when you think about it, how many different ways can a mouth, nose, eyes and chin be structured? How many eye and hair and skin colors are there?

It's a wonder we don't all look like each other's twin, or at least first cousin twice removed.

And while I'm at it, don't you look familiar to me?

The (School) Teachers That Taught Me The Most

Talk about people who mold you! Teachers often have a huge impact on students, especially in the early years, and then I think again, in high school.

My early years were blessed with wonderful teachers. My first grade teacher, Lois Parks,  had the same birthday as I, which I thought made me really special. Harder to grasp was that her mother lived two doors down from me. I couldn't figure out how my teacher could actually have a mother and siblings!

I remember the excitement of learning to print and read. I wanted those books to be an actual part of me. And in a way, I guess they are.

My second grade teacher, Winnifred Hudson, was just as wonderful. It was her last year to teach. I remember when she died I was in my thirties. She was in her nineties. I hope those last years of her life were enjoyable. She gave me a lot of joy. Teaching me how to write cursive, growing me in my reading abilities. I loved every minute of it.

Then there are the teachers who teach you other things. Things that can hurt you if you aren't careful.

My ninth grade English teacher, Miss Dyer, was teaching her very first year. She herself had a lot to learn. She was extremely buck toothed, her eyes were crossed and she was bottom heavy. But you know what? If she had been nice, none of that would have mattered.

Instead, she set her beady little eyes on us and commenced to ridicule us for everything we were. She was from "up North" and had come South to teach the poor ignorant Appalachian children of her mind.

If she heard us say "hey" to each other, she would stop us and remind us that, "Hay is for horses, grass is cheaper."

She had already had the door knob to her classroom graced with a water filled condom. Her shrieks could be heard that  morning as she started to unlock the door, all the way down to the Principal's office.

I don't remember if we had turned in a writing assignment, or if she had confiscated one of my short stories from another student, but she held it in her hand one morning.

What I do remember is she had read it and was accusing me of plagiarism.

Now, as a fourteen year old, I had never heard the word plagiarism, but there was no mistaking the condescending tone of her voice.

When it became obvious to her no one in the room knew what she was talking about (other than she was obviously insulting me), she smugly gave us the definition.

The room exploded in my defense. These kids had been reading my junk since fifth grade. They knew what I was capable of, much more so than she.

I don't think I got an apology.

None of us did for her horrible behavior toward us all.

But she did not return the following year.

Another English high school teacher who was a huge influence on me, this time in a positive way, was Phil Wertz.

He made Shakespeare come alive. He explained it in such a way, had us read it in such a way, practicing out loud, that it became living color for us.

And  no, he didn't make fun of our hillbilly accents.

He introduced us to some really cool fiction, fiction that I would have not discovered (at least for a long time) if not for him.

By the way, he came to my first book signing. Thank you, Mr. Wertz.

Other teachers were kind to me, showed me leniency when I needed it and firmness when I needed it.

Good old Mr. Jones passed me in Algebra with a seventy and one fourth for the year because he knew there was no way on earth I could ever really pass it.

Mrs. Hagopian taught me to love another language. Viva la France!

Mr. Turner was amazed at my typing skills and pushed me to go faster and faster until I was doing 110 words a minute. Good thing he wasn't my driver's ed teacher.

Lee Ellen Newton, my Junior year English teacher introduced me to Tolkien. She even risked her  life by borrowing "The Hobbit" and the trilogy from a fellow teacher who would have killed her if something had happened to his copies.  Those books were almost impossible to find in 1971. She also said I had "incredible" writing skills.

Take that, Miss Dyer.

There are many, many more teachers who protected me, taught me, and even loved me

The few bad apples aren't even worth remembering - except that they taught me things, too.