MEMORIES OF TEACHERS

Miss Sherrod – A new perspective on myself

It is odd looking back at the things that stick in memory.  Small things that happened that shaped who I am today.  Miss Sherrod had me for English.  One of our assignments was to write a theme paper.  Now I was happy to be in Miss Sherrod’s class as it was said she loved football players.  Therefore with a little effort like staying awake most of the class, I was sure to pass.

I knew I had to turn in something but writing was never very interesting to me.  It was always hard for me to put one word after another and producing a coherent paragraph was difficult.  However, I wrote a paper on “Frigidaire Soup” describing how my mom saved leftovers from meals till the Frigidaire was full, then dumping it all in a pot, adding water, she cooked it over low heat. We would then eat the soup until it was gone and the cycle would begin all over again.  I filled up the required length of the paper with the various vegetables, meats, and spices that went into the pot.

Miss Sherrod was so impressed by my effort that she had me read the essay to the class.  This totally blew me away.  No teacher had ever suggested that I had any talent or potential up to that point.

Did this have anything to do with playing football?  I don’t know, but I do know that she gave me a totally new way of looking at myself.  Perhaps there could be more to life than being a “dumb jock”.

Coach Wright - A New Trick or an Epiphany

Early fall in Coach Wright’s Algebra Class, the sun was shining outside, Annette Clark was at the blackboard presenting one of the homework problems.  I leaned back and stretched out my legs and gazed at the ceiling.  Out of boredom and tired of daydreaming, I started counting the tiles on the ceiling.

Ah, I didn’t notice Coach circling behind me in the back of the room.  I was engrossed in my own mathematical world.  He knelt down right behind me, leaned over to me ear and whispered:  “It is much faster to count the tiles across the front, then from front to back and multiply the two!” 

I sat bolt upright in the desk.  I don’t think anyone else in the class noticed this encounter.  There were a lot of things he could have done, such as sending me to the principal’s office, or embarrassing me in front of the class, etc.  However he had my full and undivided attention from then on!

Miss Sally Daves – The Lost Future

Reading Patsy Bell Congleton’s write-up reminded me of my disappointment at not receiving my future from Miss Sallie Daves.  She had us write the essay on what we would be doing in ten years.  How sweet it would have been to have had a computer or copier to have saved that priceless essay.

 Priceless?  For me yes, as I too put in perhaps more effort on that essay than anything I had written before or since.  I suspect that my concepts of the future possibilities was very constrained.  I labored and dreamed over that paper considering all the wonders I would be able to accomplish in those ten years.  Of course I was going to go play football for the Green Bay Packers which was where Bart Starr from the University of Alabama had gone.  Ah, rich and famous, the world would be my oyster!

So much for teenage dreams!  However, Miss Daves did inspire me over the years to write down my plans, dreams and future hopes.  It gives me pleasure to look back at those papers and see that some dreams were realized as well as having others which are left as future potential.  An interesting window on who I once was!

I was sorely disappointed when I didn’t get that essay back and I didn’t know why. I never would have thought of a fire causing my Future to be Lost! Now this is one more mystery of youth solved!  So I lost that teenage future but found a more realistic one in a life filled with many blessings!

Thanks Patsy.

Mr. Carl Boley – Plea of Poverty

I was reminded of this when I read on the webpage in our Freshman Handbook that we had 25 minutes for lunch.  My home was about two blocks from the high school.   I liked to run and enjoyed the fresh air so I could be home in under a minute.

In those days most moms’s stayed at home so I could have my lunch ready on the table when I arrived.  23 minutes was plenty of time for me to eat a fresh home cooked meal.  I was sorry for those who lived far away and couldn’t get home for lunch.

Ah, but getting back to school for class was a different story.  The distance to school expanded after eating to where it took between 15 and 30 minutes after lunch for my reluctant feet to get me back to school!  Soon the issue was brought to Mr. Boley’s attention and he called me to the principal’s office.

He wanted to know why I was late getting to class after lunch.  I explained that I went home for lunch and he pressed me about it.  I decided to be a little creative about the need to go home for lunch and told him I could not afford to eat in the cafeteria.  Big mistake as he then told me about the federal and state programs to aid folks who did not have enough money for a school lunch.  He had the papers for me to take home for my parent’s signature to get that aid. At that time it dawned on me the amount of trouble I would be in with my parents if I took a paper home for them to sign that they could not afford my lunch!

Caught between a rock and a hard place.  Wow!  I promised Mr. Boley that the next time I was late, I would take the papers home.  Needless to say I was not late to class again.

Mrs. Dewey Vines - The Awaking

Mediocre would be a step up for me as a student at SHS.  However something happened in Mrs.Vines class to inspire me to have an interest in history.

I was in Rome some years ago right up the street from the Roman Coliseum.  On the wall in front of me was a mosaic of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.  I thought of her and how as a student it had never occurred to me that I would ever get out of the Tri-Cities much less get to Rome!  But Mrs. Vines had captured and inspired an interest in history and I made an A on a six week report card. 

I decided to determine if it was a fluke or if I had potential as a student.  I was not so dense that I didn’t realize most folk thought I was a “dumb jock”.  I agreed with them!  However I conceived a plan to make the honor roll for the next reporting period by doing something very unusual – I decided to study!

It worked like a charm – all A’s on the next report card!  My parents and friends were all amazed.  What had happened?  Could this be a new me?  Sadly, it was not to be.  I felt I had proved my point and slid quickly and happily back into my lackadaisical ways. 

Miss Hammond – Biology during Puberty

It must be admitted that as a kid I liked boys much better than girls.  Boys seldom cried when knocked down and adults were much less concerned about boys fighting, but let me hit my sister one time and I would hear about it forever.  She still reminds me of those days.  Boys were also easy to get together in groups for controlled mayhem which was called football. 

So here I was in Miss Hammond’s class and she was ready to talk about reproduction.  I kept trying to crawl under my desk and kept praying for the bell to ring.  The concept of actually being close to girls made me very nervous.  Being alone with a girl in an intimate encounter was beyond me.  Even the thought of my parents being involved in this type of activity was beyond belief.  I was still pretty strongly a believer in immaculate conception.

I was much happier with the amoebas and cell division – mitosis  was a nice concept.  However, I think Miss Hammond was just as uncomfortable with human reproduction as I was!  It was also difficult to concentrate on this as we were in a mixed class.  What on earth could those girls be thinking about during this presentation.  As I recall she was able to get through the whole process in less than one class.  So much for sex education, I was ready to get out of class eager for football practice!

Mrs. Murray/Mr. Poe – A life skill

From Peggy Wynn Taylor’s poem:

          Mrs. Murray's typing class was one that was fun, 

          and Miss Mary Ella Hammond's class was always searching for some chemical unknown.

  Accidents happen in life and some are very fortunate.  In a burst of enthusiasm I signed up for Latin.  Some inchoate interest in language caused me to want to learn a foreign language, perhaps one day when I got out of school I would go to Latin America:-)   I thought it would be a good idea to be able to converse with the natives!

  Whoa, was I surprised when Mr. Poe called me into his office.  It had been decided that I should focus on learning English as a second language instead of taking Latin.  He also suggested that perhaps plumbing would be a good idea for a student of my limited skills.  As the DO person he thought that he could help me develop my talents in a more appropriate way.

  I don’t remember being so terrified in my life.  I had crawled under my house with my father to work on plumbing for adding a new room to the house.  I have had a lifelong aversion since that time to spiders and snakes!  Plumbing may have paid well according to Mr. Poe, but the environment was frightening!   His suggestion almost “Put the fear of God in me”.

  Thanking him for his advice, he had me sign up for typing instead of Latin.  This turned out to be one of the most useful skills that I got in high school.  My folks got me a typewriter for school papers and I loved that old Underwood.  However, my memory fails as I try to recall if the ones in Mrs. Murray’s class were manual or electric?

Typing gave me a big head start when the computer revolution came along.  I have been forever grateful to Mrs. Murray and Mr. Poe for giving me a useful tool in my work.  For some years I have waited for Speech Recognition to replace the old familiar keyboard.  That time has not arrived as yet!