I grew up as a crooked girl who dealt with a mild case of cerebral palsy. In a small Cajun town during the 1960s, I relied on my little sisters' support and energy to give me confidence and our grandma's movie theater to help me escape when life's "pas bon" moments overwhelmed me.
After I secured my MA in English at LSU in 1980, I took a teaching position at an un-air-conditioned elementary school north of Baton Rouge. As a Language Development teacher I was part of a state program that helped children who were “culturally deprived.” I gave no grades and used puppets and a small record player to sing songs as we worked on vocabulary building, letter recognition, and basic reading skills. I worked with small groups of kids between 5-7 years old who came to me for 30-minute classes each day.
My Elementary School Kids
The school was a long building in the countryside with one classroom for each grade (K thru 8). Recess time for kindergarteners was in a small field next to a fenced area of cows. The mooing of our bovine neighbors mixed with the whirr of electric fans. The population was 98.9% African-American. I remember an extra tall kindergarten boy who was “mixed” and one pale, blonde second grader.
My students spent most of their lives in the rural area they called home. When we took the kindergarteners for a field trip to Baton Rouge, the biggest Wow! was the escalator at the mall where we had lunch. A few five-year-olds needed help getting on and off the moving stairs, but others wanted to ride up and down more times than they could count.
I became friends with Molly, the kindergarten teacher, because I worked with her whole class, and we shared lunch while her kids napped on dark blue mats. I helped her color 3-foot high cardboard cut-outs of the Alphabet Kids. I loved coloring as we chatted. I knew the kindergarten class best since I only worked with a few first and second graders.
Our zoo field trip
I remember David who rarely slept on his blue mat. He stayed quiet while squirming and searching the room for another wakeful peer; however, all the other kids had entered the Land of Nod. I smiled often at Sammy, a chubby boy who was first to fall asleep flat on his back with his mouth half- open to make him appear more vulnerable than those who curled into balls or hugged a treasured stuffed animal from home. Sammy was a cute, yet tough bundle of energy when he wasn’t napping. He had a husky laugh and lots of friends. When I had Sammy in my class he sang confidently during the puppet songs and I believed we got along like cheese and crackers.
One humid afternoon I helped Molly with a line of five-year-olds as they waited for the school bus or a parent to take them home. (Kindergarten got out an hour earlier than the rest of the school). Each child had a note pinned to his/her shirt with details about our upcoming field trip. Sammy was kicking up gravel as he waited. I smiled at him and squatted to be eye-level. “Sammy, you excited about going to Baton Rouge next week?”
He continued kicking pebbles and surprised me with, “Momma told me don’t trust a white person farther than I can throw ‘em.”
Maybe he had seen his mother’s car pull up and didn’t want to be caught talking to me. Maybe I had corrected his pronunciation in my class earlier that day. In a moment Sammy went from being a student I felt comfortable with to someone I didn’t know.
For the first time I felt a smidgen of judgement based on the color of my skin. I never had a run-in with any parent that school year. I got only positive feedback from my principal. I thought I was a decent elementary teacher, even if my diploma said “Secondary School English.” But Sammy made me face the separation of races in Louisiana in the 1980s. I did not think I held prejudice in my heart. However, I grew up around racism in my hometown. Sammy’s mother’s beliefs came from her own experiences, and she was teaching her son how to navigate the world she lived in.
Back then no one used the triggering term “woke,” but Sammy opened me to living Atticus Finch’s advice in To Kill a Mockingbird– “You never really understand another person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
I had a sheltered upbringing when it came to other cultures. My segregated hometown and a Catholic school education kept me ignorant in some ways. I thought I trusted, accepted, and understood people from different races. But teaching in several schools with diverse populations, I got “schooled” by my students and their families. And teaching teens with lives so unlike my own made me a better person.
The quote “Be a person on whom nothing is lost” by Henry James helps me seek new ways to understand other people and to accept our differences. I will never understand prejudice the way those who lived it have, yet I can be open-minded to their ideas and accept them for who they are…..even if they don’t trust me.
Back in 2004 I was teaching AP English IV at Crockett High School. My seniors took their AP Exam in early May. We had studied Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness the weeks before the big exam. I had told them, “This book is only 90 pages long; however, it will be the most challenging book you’ve ever read.”
Some sentences meandered for three quarters of a page, and Conrad smashed the dialogue between different characters into a single paragraph. Conrad helped readers feel the confusion and danger of taking an old steamboat down the Congo River in 1834. The paragraphs were as dense as the jungle, and the characters’ secrets were as dark as their greed. Also, the narrator’s story got more menacing as he got closer to Mr. Kurtz, the ivory merchant he was supposed to take out of the jungle.
While my senior classes endured their 3-hour morning AP exam, I realized that my afternoon classes would be in no shape to study literature that day. My video about free verse poetry and the short story with a surprise ending would hold no one’s interest. Their hands would be tired after writing three literary essays, and their brains would be fried after the exam’s grueling multiple choice section.
My well-used copy of the book
During lunchtime I went to the teacher lounge and noticed two large rolls of colored paper in the supply closet – the kind of paper we used to cover bulletin boards or let students make projects with. One roll was green and the other was brown. An idea emerged. I grabbed a box of scissors and a few rolls of masking tape. With ten minutes left of my lunch, I hurried to the art classes downstairs and borrowed a large roll of blue paper and one of black from my favorite art teacher.
She asked, “What are you making?”
I looked at her and smiled. “A jungle!” Being open-minded, supportive, and cool, she asked no questions and had two art students carry the paper rolls upstairs to my classroom.
My seniors came to class both tired and energized. Some wanted to talk about the AP Exam (which violated the form they had signed to not discuss test details with anyone). Others were hoping for a movie to watch, and maybe one or two came in thinking we might analyze a poem.
I surprised all with, “Today we’re turning our classroom into the Heart of Darkness Jungle!”
First, we brainstormed setting details from Heart of Darkness. They mentioned the Congo River, the steam boat, Krutz’s cabin in the jungle, and the severed heads on poles used to ward off intruders. We decided to use the green, black, and brown paper to make trees and vines to suggest the jungle, the blue for the river, and white to draw the boat and the main characters.
All got into the jungle idea. I told them they had to join a group: Vine Makers, River Workers, Steamboat Builders, and Hut Makers. A few asked if they could make the heads on poles. To receive a 100 for the day’s assignment each student had to help build the jungle and to add a quote from Heart of Darkness. My students worked like large elves on Christmas Eve. Someone even used my computer to blast the song, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” as we worked.
As as an experienced teacher, I’ve had successes some days. Sometimes students really enjoy discussing a thought-provoking story like “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”; or they give star performances of a Hamlet soliloquy; or they cry at the end of Elie Wiesel’s Night. However, so many of my seniors loved building the jungle that the next year I let my sophomores contribute to the jungle by adding details from The Lord of the Flies. One student decided the entrance way needed a waterfall, so people had to push aside the long strips of blue paper as they came to class. Some of my peers told me they’d hate so much chaos and mess in their classroom, but I learned to embrace the wild spirits and high energy of my students.
After a few years of building jungles, I had my coolest teacher buddies (Paul & Janie), who also taught Heart of Darkness, build their own jungles. And the groovy art teacher would visit our classes and give a certificate for “The Best Jungle.” I did not win that certificate, but I did have future students (freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors) come to the very first day of school and say, “Hey, Miss, when are we gonna make a jungle in your class?”
Recently Gary said something that made me bust out laughing. I was leaving to observe a student teacher and said, “I’m worried that I wore this same skirt the last time I observed her class.”
He dismissed my fear with, “Don’t worry. No one will even notice what you’re wearing.”
T-shirt from Crockett High School (my favorite place to teach!)
“What!?” I said. “Teenage girls notice EVERYTHING their teachers wear, say, do, or do not do!”
They criticize pants that don’t fit well, shoes that are worn out, a dress older than their parents are, a necklace, earrings, makeup, or lack of makeup, an unusual pronunciation (even if it’s a word they don’t know), your voice, your posture, your haircut, your car, your lunch, your pet, your children, or even your momma. Nothing is off-limits. To most teens, teachers give them too much homework but not enough praise. Also, we provide endless chances for them to perfect their criticism skills.
I remember once wearing one navy sock and one black sock. So I deserved the, “Hey, Miss! Your socks don’t match.” I also had to claim the, “Why you mixing a pearl earring with your fake diamond one?” And I turned hot sauce red when a usually quiet girl pointed to my left ankle and softly said, “The staple you used on your pants’ hem is about to fall off.” Guilty as charged.
But I didn’t like the observational skills of a fifteen-year-old who stood up in class and pointed to my white shirt’s left pocket and smiled. “Your mustard stain reminds me of my baby sister’s throw up!”
And nothing stings like the, “Hey, Miss! You oughta give whoever cut your hair a minus-one review on Yelp!”
Even the unintentional criticisms can punch your self-image in the face. “Miss! Guess what! You and my great-grandma have the same blue jean skirt.” During my 36 years of teaching, students have been both ruthless and helpful.
I’ve had kids point out lettuce between my teeth many times. The kind ones whisper the problem (“There’s something in your teeth”) while you’re picking up that day’s assignment. The uncouth ones make sure all thirty-four classmates hear them announce, “Hey, Miss, your spinach had a fight with your honeydew at lunch!”
Some adjectives that were meant to grind down my confidence in my lesson plans have been: “Hey Miss, this book is lame…whack…stupid…sorry ass… boring… sucks… all kinds of wrong… too easy… too hard…awful…lousy…inferior…crummy…basic…cheesy…off…and crappy.”
One time when my principal observed me teaching, a cute cheerleader passed judgement on my new dress by looking me up and down and slowing shaking her head. Then the fact that my lesson was clever, creative, and engaging meant nothing to me, and the dress I paid way too much for was in our Goodwill bag the next week.
After I turned fifty, the teens’ criticisms made me laugh more often than blush. So what if I got confused when using my room’s “smart board” or messed up streaming video on the doc-cam.
“You’re forgetting to unmute the sound, Miss,” or “Your hyperlink doesn’t open,” did not bother me.
“Hey, Eric, could you sort out my tech issues?” I’d say and all would be well.
And the quips about my crooked glasses, out-of-date clothes, or uncool taste in music did no harm. When someone noticed two inches of my half-slip showing, I could step behind a bookcase and roll up my slip’s waistband as I continued analyzing Shakespeare’s use of figurative language without missing a metaphor.
I love the line from the Oak Ridge Boys’ song “Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight” — “I gotta roll on between the ditches.” Turning older has made me tough and carefree, where the snarky criticisms not only slide off my back but evaporate into a lavender mist.
When I consider my 34 years of teaching, I think one of my most important challenges was understanding and supporting each of my teen-aged readers and writers. As an English teacher, I see the task of “getting to know your students” as a Herculean job since we also have to grade and give useful feedback on their essays and research reports.
My students often shared things in their personal narratives that shocked, saddened, or confused me. (And I’m NOT talking about the handwritten scribbles without punctuation or capitalization or the cursive that is so tiny I needed either direct sunlight or a magnifying glass to figure it out). I’m referring to the loneliness, the trauma, the heartaches, and the stress they routinely shared in their essays. I’m remembering the stories that made me cringe, laugh aloud, and cry. I’m remembering the ones that called for an after-class conference or a visit to the school counselor.
I felt both honored and burdened by their honesty. Since high school teachers often have rosters with 180-plus students, how do we learn their names before back-to-school night? How do we handle so much angst, joy, depression, immaturity, intelligence, and cynicism without giving up every second of our home lives? And how do I separate each school day’s drama from my family responsibilities? How do I focus on my own children’s needs and forget my students’ issues?
Like the tv series Severance where Lumon employees sever the connection between their work lives and their private lives. A worker’s “innie” doesn’t remember anything about his/her “outie” home life (and vice/versa). Maybe a teacher could cope better if her “outie” forgot all the details of her “innie” life.
I’ve taught over 6,000 students, and I confess I don’t remember every single kid. But so, so many smiles, smirks, glares, and empathetic nods remain. The ones who shared their wisdom and laughter stay with me as much as the ones who made me cry and rush to another teacher or an assistant principal for help. The faces, of course, linger longer than the names.
Here is a short account of one of my students. Using a different name, this is a brief remembrance of an unforgettable freshman at Crockett High School.
Thomas
Three weeks into the school year I noticed a freshman’s black and white marbled composition book on my desk atop fat folders of ungraded quizzes – a writing journal without a name and not returned to second period’s designated shelf where even stacks of non-spiral notebooks gave the illusion of order.
I finished writing next period’s agenda on the streaked white board before I flipped through pages of black ink scrawls that made the lined paper curl like those paper-thin red plastic fish that move in your palm and predict the future. The last few pages had more cursive than print and less punctuation. “i sit on the roof & wonder why im even here” made me sit down. I scanned previous lines about “a heart of hurt,” a girl’s “soulful eyes,” a “silence that slices” and a “cold colorless world.”
I reread the notebook searching for a specific name. Nothing. I flipped through second period’s quizzes searching for that same hard-pressed ink, minimal punctuation, print/cursive mix, and the lowercase i’s until I held Thomas’s quiz about Gwendolyn Brook’s poem “We Real Cool.” He’d circled the poet’s use of alliteration and underlined “We die soon” six times.
I referred back to Thomas’s journal and touched the words “on the roof” before having the sense to seek help. I rushed downstairs to my favorite counselor’s office. The woman who focused on class schedules and state mandated testing switched to doing what she was trained to do. We compared the journal with the quiz paper and agreed Thomas was the author. A slim boy with wild blond curls and a skateboard stuck out of his backpack. He wore over-sized, faded 80’s rock concert t-shirts and loose black jeans. A mix of grunge and emo. Withdrawn yet observant. Someone who sat in the back row, stared out the window, and usually avoided his 31 classmates. Someone a teacher with 184 students could fail to notice.
My vague answers to the counselor’s specific questions made me squirm. We labeled Thomas a smart student with a “B” average, neither a joiner nor a trouble maker. He melded into crowds of teens struggling to be seen and ignored at the same time.
I thought about next week’s Back-to-School Night when tired parents would come to Crockett High School to trudge up and down stairs and visit eight teachers who might remember half of their students’ names, so the question “How’s my son doing?” was as pointless as “What’s my kid’s blood type?”
By now I had missed my lunch duty and had eight minutes before third period began. The counselor kept the journal and nodded to me while reading details about Thomas’s classes and his family on her computer.
I left her office, walked through the school’s open-air courtyard, and looked up past the massive oaks and concrete steps that led to my second floor classroom. Could Thomas be on the school roof? Or across the street atop the flat tops of the strip mall businesses? Had he gone to the neighboring city park’s rec. center next to an empty swimming pool with a peeling, cracked blue bottom?
At my desk I ate broken Pringles from a plastic baggy. I thought of the one time Thomas had spoken up in class telling a peer to “quit stereotyping the story’s protagonist.” My teacher heart had danced a jig then, but I couldn’t remember the rest of the literary discussion. I thought of Thomas’s extra dark eyes beneath long bleached curls and how he responded to my morning greetings with eye contact and head nods.
The assault of third period’s buzzer-bell sent me to my door to greet 33 teens. My after-lunch sophomores came in loud and messy. Conspiratorial laughs from two girls preceded a running Sam who tossed a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos to Carlos who tugged on a cheerleader’s backpack which made her yell, “Loser!” before swatting at the runner who headed toward a window past short, short Cici who wore headphones and slipped into her desk before putting her head down while a new girl taller than me stopped at my door. New girl’s thin hand with chipped black nail polish held a printout from the attendance office. I gave her a smile and a “Hey there,” took the paper, and pointed to my last empty desk. When Gabriella began passing out the black and white journals, I forgot which chapter of Animal Farm we were on because all my head could do was scan rooftops for a fourteen-year-old boy I hardly knew.
Note to readers: The school counselor did locate Thomas off-campus that day. He was hanging out in Garrison Park and despite his broken heart he was fine. She talked with him, but I never confronted him about the “sitting on the roof” drama. He passed freshman English and graduated a few years later. I have no further info. but I hope he remembers some of the literature we talked about like I’ll always remember the panic I felt about the journal he had left on my desk and my flawed attempt at “getting to know my students.”
This story is based on my memories of sharing my wisdom with my younger sisters in the 1960s.
Me, Gayle, and Kelly in 1966
When I was seven years old I tried my hand at what would become my future profession. On a late summer afternoon, I smoothed the front of a stiff red and white church dress, brought my tanned bare feet together, repositioned my white plastic headband, and looked my class over from the white brick fireplace hearth that raised me three inches above those I’d be instructing. Kelly, age three, wearing light blue shorts and a sleeveless white cotton crop top sat crosslegged on the living room carpet. She held a Big Chief tablet and a red crayon. Gayle, age five, wore a faded Tweety bird t-shirt with a never-worn navy school uniform skirt and sat erect on a small wooden chair. She tapped her brand new letter-practicing book with a fat pencil and wriggled her toes as she stretched her feet to touch the legs of a red and yellow plastic chalk board that came with my surprise birthday gift that year: a Suzy Smart Deluxe Doll Set!
Suzy Smart, dressed in a white blouse under a red plaid jumper and standing two feet tall, completed the class and sat stiffly in her own red and yellow plastic desk. I smiled down at my class of three and held up a piece of chalk to draw a large capital letter “A” on the chalk board.
My grandson’s chalkboard
“Today we practice our A’s.” I established eye-contact with each student and added, “Y’all gotta draw ten A’s for me. On your mark, get set… go!”
Gayle took to the assignment like a Cajun to hot boudin. Having to use her lap was all that kept her from making uniform A’s. Kelly tried her first A, but the slanted lines were uneven and her letter did not look like the one on the chalk board.
“I’m gonna make little ‘l’s’,” she said and started covering her first page with a letter she liked.
I focused on the obedient ones. “Good job, Gayle,” I said. Suzy gave me her straight-forward stare. “Nice listening, Suzy.”
Then I knelt down next to Kelly. “Your ‘l’s’ are good, good, but we’re doing ‘A’s.’ Here. Let me show you how.” I put my hand over her fist and guided the red crayon through a perfect A formation. “Like this.”
Kelly pushed aside a stray strand from a pigtail and said, “OK,” and continued to drew more l’s.
“You already made like fifty l’s . You need to learn your A’s.”
“No A’s in my name.”
“Good! You know how to spell your name, but I’m teaching ALL the letters today.”
“ ‘A’ is the very first letter,” said Gayle as she completed her tenth “A” and nodded proudly to each of us, including Suzy. She wrapped a long strand of jet black hair behind right her ear and waited for further instructions.
“How many letters?” asked Kelly.
Getting a bit of teacher inspiration, I said, “We should sing the A-B-C song!”
The human students stood up to belt out “A,B,C,D,E,F,G…” Susie listened. As Kelly screamed out the final Z, she grabbed Gayle’s hands, and led her in circles for the “Now I know my ABC’s” part.
The dancing pupils added impromptu hip-shaking for their song’s end.
I was losing control of my class. I erased the “A” and drew a “B” on the chalk board. “Good job, y’all! Now let’s practice the second letter – B.” My sisters then snapped to like tiny soldiers and for some weird reason saluted.
“Ok, class. Sit down now,” I said. Both obeyed, but first Kelly snatched Gayle’s new pencil gave her the red crayon.
“Hey. Give it back,” said Gayle.
“Just let me borrow it.”
“You suppose to ask.”
“Can I use your pencil?”
“Please.”
“Pleeeease.”
“Say pretty please.”
“Pretty please, ya dumb sneeze.”
“She called me ‘dumb,’ Teacher!”
Kelly stuck her tongue out at the snitch. I clapped my hands together. “Class! Y’all gotta listen.” Gayle grabbed her pencil back and bounced the crayon off Kelly’s pert pug nose.
Kelly picked up Gayle’s letter practice book and ran behind me. “I’m agonna rip this up,” she said.
Gayle could not wait for help from an inept teacher. She knocked over both Susie’s and her desk as she rushed after Kelly.
I tried keeping the girls apart as Kelly danced behind me and moved the book in circles around her face.
“Na! Na! Na! You can’t get me,” she chanted right before Gayle got ahold of her right pigtail. The letter book fell, the chalk board collapsed, and Kelly sprang into fight mode. Both girls got fistfuls of hair. For several seconds the hair-pulling tug-of-war was a stalemate. Gayle’s longer arms gave her an advantage, but Kelly’s spicy temper made it a fair fight.
“Stop it! Y’all are wrong, wrong! Stop!” I said as I pushed my way between them. Kelly was biting her stuck-out tongue to concentrate. Gayle had both of her sister’s pigtails when Kelly dropped her sister’s hair strands. Her smaller stature lacked the force she needed to make Gayle release the pigtails, so Kelly leaned back and kicked her left foot high enough to get her foe right in her tee-heinie. The taller girl let go of the shorter one’s hair and fell to the carpet. She put both hands over the place of pain and let loose the “OWWWWW’s”
“That’s what you get,” said Kelly.
Gayle moaned like a dying opossum.
I sat on Gayle’s chair in defeat. Kelly tapped a line of dots on the fallen chalkboard as her sister made herself into a ball on the floor. I straightened the bow on the Suzy doll’s ponytail and sighed as if I’d dropped the last bite of the last slice of watermelon into a pile of fire ants.
Being used to sister fights and being relieved that I was above this current argument, I went to the den’s plaid couch and looked out our huge picture window. Our dog Lady was taking her mid-morning nap in the shade of our cement patio. I focused past our yard on the rice fields that surrounded our home. The sun winked at me between oak tree branches. With a sigh that reflected on and accepted my big sister wisdom, I decided that teaching was not for me.
I never dreamed of being a teacher. In 1965, at age nine, reading was my favorite pastime, and I wanted to be a writer. After seeing Funny Girl in 1968, I wanted to be an actress. As I endured my high school years, my cerebral palsied limitations (a mostly useless left hand and a limping leg) I changed my dreams of being on stage with Barbra Streisand to being her best friend. In college I decided writing was my best option, so I majored in journalism. I switched to creative writing when I realized there was a typing requirement for the compulsory news reporting class. After I spent one thrilling semester as a Creative Writing major Dad said, “English major? You need to switch to Education. Get a job as a teacher.” Since he paid for my education, I followed his demand.
So I endured Statistics, Fundamentals of Education, and Testing Measurements. My eyes glazed over as I watched male professors wearing dark suits and frowns explain a female-dominated profession. I struggled to solve basic math problems as I yearned for poetry and short stories. My student teacher semester was my one worthwhile education class because the supervising teacher was a white-haired angel named Dr. Hair whose sage opinions included “Everyone deserves a year living in New York City.”
Dr. Hair made guiding fifteen-year-olds through literary analysis as natural as eating popcorn at the movies. She gave me the perfect balance of praise and pressure. I guided reluctant teens through recognition of the eight parts of speech and examples of figurative language. I thought I could be a strong teacher who handled any educational challenge that came my way—until my first day of teaching at Anderson Junior High.
The school was in a small south Louisiana town set literally “on the wrong side of the tracks.” On my first day of work, the principal handed me a wooden paddle – “for discipline.” The English Department chair did not tell me how happy she was to have me at Anderson Junior High when she gave me a key to my classroom. Nor did she ever smile.
In theory the schools in Louisiana parishes in 1978 were integrated; in reality Anderson was 90 percent black, and its faculty included only four white teachers. Most other teachers ignored me, maybe because my pale face looked as soft as my disciplinary skills, and they believed I wouldn’t stay there long enough for them to bother learning my name. Their assumptions were as right-on as fried catfish specials on Fridays in our predominantly Catholic state.
My miscalculations began when I missed the obvious warning sign connected to a teaching job starting in January: a teacher had quit in December! My first day of teaching a class without Dr. Hair nearby was as bad as stepping barefoot into a bed of fire ants. The seventh graders had run off their last teacher the week before Christmas break; in January they took one look at the remnants of my bad perm and my plaid wool skirt with its matching vest and recognized new teacher inexperience.
I’d gotten to school early enough to write the day’s agenda on the blackboard below the day’s date and next to my name in white powdery cursive. The front of the room was cluttered with heavy cardboard boxes filled with that semester’s new grammar workbooks. My department chair, who had looked at and spoken to me as little as possible the day before, said, “Distribute these,” after she concluded our thirteen-minute new teacher orientation.
I straightened the rows of battered wooden desks and the stack of my “Welcome to Seventh Grade Language Arts!” packets. I reviewed the names of the 172 students I would meet that day, and I went over the index cards for my first-day-of-school welcome speech. I said a fast Hail Mary and made the sign of the cross when the first bell rang.
In seconds the halls filled with the noise and energy of thirteen-to-sixteen-year-olds. Our school district did not practice “social promotion,” and a few boys with facial hair sat in seats next to boys whose feet did not touch the floor. I mispronounced at least five names that day, but the students did not hold it against me when I changed the roster’s “Edward” to “Eddie” or made pronunciation notations on “Janie” (a short A beginning and a long E at the end). I think they were still uncertain about where I stood on the spectrum of clueless teachers.
The first time I turned my back on the class to list the “Being Verbs” on the board, I heard a four-second belch and watched a wad of paper flying toward the waste basket near the front door. It missed its mark. After I repeated “Be, am, are, is, was, were, being, and been,” I picked up the wadded paper and dropped it in the trash in movements both smooth and confident. I raised my eyebrows when I realized the paper ball was my welcome packet but remembered Dr. Hair’s advice: “Give students your respect and as much eye contact as possible.” Several kids were smirking, and five occupied desks that had nothing on them, so there was no way I knew which student had tossed the welcome packet my way. I suspected a tall black-haired boy with slits for eyes.
I paced in front of the class and moved to my packet’s next bullet point.
“Who knows what an adverb is?” I said and prayed for an answer. The girl in the front row who had answered every other question that period raised her hand. “Let’s give someone else a chance to answer, Trina,” I said as I looked toward the slit-eyed boy. He leaned back in his seat and folded his arms. I decided to call on someone from my seating chart. “Whitney?” I said. “Could you read the definition of an adverb?” I nodded as she complied. Then, walking closer to the middle row of students, I said “Adverbs give verbs and adjectives more flavor.” I scanned the seating chart: “David, can you use the adverb ‘quickly’ in a sentence?”
Slit-Eye snorted, and a thin boy looking lost in what was undoubtedly an older sibling’s pale blue sweater said, “Which one?” I then realized there were two Davids in that class. I chose “David Fontenot.” The slit-eyed David was ready for me, even as Trina raised her hand and wiggled her splayed fingers.
“Stupid bell can’t ring quickly enough to get us out of here,” David F. said.
Most kids laughed, and a girl with bangs that covered the top half of her eyes clapped and smiled at David. I smiled, too, and said, “I totally agree!”
I then ruined my tiny victory by saying, “Good job, David. Our packet also tells us that adverbs can modify adjectives. Can someone give me a sentence using an adverb that describes an adjective?” By this time, eager Trina had given up on me. Looking over my seating chart I saw a name I loved. “Chloe,” I said. “Will you give us a sentence with an adverb describing the adjective ‘happy’?”
From the back of the room the girl with extravagant bangs aimed her chin at me. “Adjective?” she said in a husky voice loaded with disdain.
“Trina, please define adjective for us.”
With a voice like a defeated postal worker, my former ally said, “Adjectives describe nouns and answer the questions what kind, how many, and which one.”
“Chloe, will you give us a sentence with an adverb describing the adjective ‘happy’? Common adverbs are ‘very’ and ‘too’ as in ‘too much.” I gave her the appropriate wait time to answer. Chloe folded her arms and glared at me still grinning.
I took a deep breath. “Anyone have a sentence with an adverb that modifies ‘happy’?” I said as the ticking of the large round school clock seemed to slow down time. I decided to write some examples on the blackboard. I took three steps backwards forgetting about the cardboard boxes of workbooks. My right heel hit the corner of one that was open and half empty, and my left foot turned sideways as I half-fell, half-sat into the box. My only bit of luck was that my plaid skirt was maxi length and I didn’t “bomb” the class with a view of my underwear.
Gayle, me, & Jana (I’m wearing my first day of teaching outfit).
After two seconds of surprise the class erupted into laughter that unified them against the enemy, the outsider, the one they viewed as a temporary teacher. To get out of the box gracefully, I would have needed a helping hand, but no seventh grader would put a teacher ahead of her reputation—not even Trina. As I spread my feet farther apart, I used my good right hand to grab the metal leg of my desk. My first attempt to pull my butt off of a pile of Houghton Mifflin’s Workbooks for the Fundamentals of Grammar and Writing failed to end my humiliation. I needed to push off with my feet and rock backwards a couple of times to get enough momentum to fall forward onto my knees. The laughter gained strength as if a seasoned comic had followed a dynamite joke with the gag that killed it. Staggering, I ripped out a few inches of my skirt’s hem with my right shoe. I took a long breath as I bent down to retrieve my papers and caught my department chair’s tired eyes looking through my door’s narrow window, probably dreading the search for my replacement so soon.
I mustered a close-lipped smile. “That’s enough,” I said and walked towards a girl laughing and slapping her desk with opened palms and I repeated, “Enough!” The girl stopped the slapping and most kids stopped laughing. I had never before wished I could evaporate into a mist and make everyone in the room forget the last several minutes. The laughter paused, and I felt twenty-seven pairs of eyes focused on me. I cleared my throat and looked at the tops of their heads. I opened my mouth, but before I could speak, Chloe said, “Bet you ain’t too happy to be here now, Ms. Keller.”
Despite the fact that she used my name and not the traditional “Hey, miss”; despite her using the adverb “too” correctly with the adjective “happy”; and despite my ability to keep from crying in front of those seventh graders, I could feel nothing but fear in my gut and shame in my soul. How could I ever be a teacher? Why had I not begged my mother to convince my dad to let me major in creative writing? When would be too soon to call in sick to work? What if I quit my job at Anderson and moved back in with my parents?
I did not hate my students that day. I did not blame the principal, my department chair, or Chloe for my disastrous first day. I accepted that day’s failure and used my 22-year old optimism to get me through that spring semester.
I didn’t realize then that there would be thirty-seven years of teaching ahead of me— instructing junior high students, college freshmen, kindergarteners, and high school seniors. I would become as comfortable in front of a classroom of teens as a crawfish is in a flooded rice field. I would even miss teaching when I became a student teacher field supervisor after I retired from full time teaching. Before this first teaching job, I’d never believed teaching would be my profession. I fell into it like I fell into that box of workbooks.
Books I loved to teach
Me and Momma with my LSU diploma
Sometimes, if we’re lucky enough, we improve our talents and learn to like what we do. And maybe we land in a box built just for us.
When I see Winslow in Casey’s smile, the world becomes a playground of possibilities: a splash pad with a soft foamy surface and gurgles of water that erupt into showers in various heights with tunnels of water where toddlers and some 5 to 8 year-olds race around while adults- parents, grandparents, nannies and friends -stand on the sidelines. The youngest kids squeal, run, and chase the water bursts with total abandon.
Last week Crystal and her grandchild Sunny, took Winslow and me to a totally shady splash pad. My grandson’s first-timer hesitancy lasted less than three minutes. He initially clutched my shirt and watched some thirty kids screaming and running through the water shooting from below and above. When the tall spurts retreated, I set Winslow down next to a gurgling burble, and when the water shot up and soaked his face while the seasoned splash pad kids raced around, he squealed and pumped his outstretched hands up and down. He forgot about me and joined his peers laughing and running through the jets of water.
Like a Cajun embraces bon temps, Winslow embraced the splash pad pandemonium.
I immediately thought of his dad – Casey McClain- my middle son who was born so fast, I couldn’t get the epidural I so wanted. Casey embodies the “carpe diem” approach to life. He’s full-speed ahead and ready to tackle life’s challenges. He and Winslow have a tight connection. I love watching them together, whether Casey’s reading his son a book or taking him down a slide. He balances rough housing with the soft touch. He loves creating special quesadillas or yummy smoothies for his son, teaching him how to spin a top, helping him walk the dog, or building a Duplo/Leggo city. Plus he seems eager to change a poopy diaper or give Winslow a bath.
Casey is a natural-born father. Last January he beamed like he had discovered the secret to eternal life when we first met Winslow in the hospital. When we babysit Winslow on Wednesdays and Thursdays, Casey pops in for lunches and stroller walks when he can.
On my grandson’s first Christmas, I gave each immediate family member a t-shirt with a different photo of him on it. Even Winslow got a t-shirt with Winslow on it! Now Casey owns five different t-shirts with various images of his son. He loves it when strangers comment on Winslow’s open-mouthed laugh or furrowed-brow pout.
Winslow does not always look like his dad. He often flashes his momma’s smile and her wistful looks. He also has her cool dance moves.
Winslow has his dad’s non-stop energy, creativity, and independent stubbornness. He insists on feeding himself even though his 4-ounce container of yogurt leaves as much on his face, hair, and shirt as ends up in his tummy. And when Winslow and I make crayon masterpieces together, I may begin a beach scene with waves and fish, but he’ll snatch the color from my hand to add his emphatic touches of “dot! dot! dot!” color.
Like most 17-month-olds, his least favorite word is, “No.” He’ll repeat my “No!” right before he continues the forbidden action.
“No, Winslow! Leave the stereo alone.”
He’ll make direct eye contact, say “No,” and then crank the bass up.
However, his tenderness matches his tete dure (hard head) nature. Casey has a heart as big and soft as a John Prine song. And Winslow bestows smooches on his Beanie Babies and his favorite Bluey stuffed animal as well as most family members if he’s not tired or hungry. When Winslow spends time on my tiny patio, he has to kiss my Kiss-Kiss Fish planter at least three times. He’s a hugger and a cuddler. He’ll pat my back as I pat his if we’re dancing to a slow song.
Apple/tree fits the Winslow/Casey connection in the best of ways. I’m understanding the glory of watching my child raise his child. Seeing my son’s full-face smile as he watches his son clop around the living room in size 13 tennis shoes gives me optimism. When clever, caring, creative parents have their kids following in their footsteps we should see the possibility for a better world.
Momma liked smaller things. A demi-tasse coffee cup, teaspoons, a dessert saucer over a dinner plate, and a purse no bigger than a seven-year-old’s palm. She preferred small, cheap towels like the ones once stuffed into boxes of Breeze detergent over the bath sheets sold in fancy department stores. And she never wanted a whole stick of her favorite Doublemint gum. “Just give me half.” In our super-sized world, she often ordered an appetizer for her meal, and a small Ruby’s biscuit with a three-inch piece of Johnson’s boudin was all she needed for breakfast.
One of eleven kids, she likely grew up with smaller portions of everything. Her family nicknamed her “Poulette” (Cajun French for “small chicken”). I remember all 5’2”, 102 pounds of her pecking around our home with an ever present dish cloth (no bigger than a Kleenex), always cleaning or cooking.
Geraldine & Reggie
The LaTour Family
However, her preference for smaller things contrasted with the largeness of her heart and her need for beaucoup bon temps. She never turned down a spicy gumbo dinner, a competitive Bouree card game (for money!), or a local festival like the International Crawfish Etouffee Cookoff in Eunice,Louisiana or the Frog Festival in nearby Rayne.
Her “don’t ever leave me out of the fun” attitude continued even after her mind got muddled and she was confined to a wheelchair. In 2014 my Sittin Ugly Sistahs (Nancy, Mary, and Cynthia) joined me in Eunice for Mardi Gras, and we wheeled Momma two blocks to the downtown festivities: a street dance with a zydeco band, a boucherie where cooks used all parts of a butchered pig to make boudin, cracklin, pork chop sandwiches, and Momma’s favorite – backbone stew. After we enjoyed the rocking band, the rich food, and the Second Street parade, a light rain started. Momma half-dozed in her wheelchair while we held an umbrella over her. “Mom, you ready to go home and take a nap?” I asked.
“Y’all going home, too?” she said.
“We’ll take you home and maybe come back for the next parade.”
“If y’all staying, so am I!”
Momma’s “joie de vivre” was as big and bold as the Eunice Superette’s black bull outside their meat market/ processing plant.
Her love for her kids and grandkids was as strong as the hugs she gave us when she was forced to tell us good-bye after a holiday visit. Wrapping both arms around my waist she’d whine, “ Cha, I don’t want you to go.”
And she’d give me three tight, tight squeezes that always took my breath away even as I braced myself for the intensity. Momma’s smiles set her blue eyes twinkling and proclaimed her marquee-sized, unconditional love that gave me the confidence I needed to have my own children. So I still hold on tight, tight, tight to my memories of Momma’s endless and sometimes jealous love because I truly prefer a salad fork over a long-tined dinner one, and my coffee tastes better in a thin rimmed cup that holds no more than three ounces.
Since the publication of Barbra Streisand’s autobiography My Name Is Barbra, the internet is blessed with endless Barbra content. For me “Happy Days Are Here Again” because I cannot get enough of Barbra Streisand!
Part of my Barbra Collection
When I saw Funny Girl in 1968, she grabbed my heart and mind with her talent and gave me more inspiration and joy than my thirteen-year-old soul could imagine. I saw her debut film twenty-four times over three weeks. (I got to see movies for free because Grandma owned the theaters in Eunice, Louisiana).
Back then my two younger sisters and I adored musicals, reenacting our favorite scenes in the big living room as Momma’s hi-fi in the den sent the songs into a round ceiling speaker. We’d take turns being Fanny Brice as we danced around chairs and twirled on the carpet to “I’m the Greatest Star” or used our fire place’s white brick hearth to represent the tugboat in “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” The “Sadie, Sadie” song challenged nine-year-old Kelly when she had the Omar Sharif part and tried to carry “Barbra” over an imaginary threshold. But we all excelled at mimicking Barbra’s facial expressions and her expressive arm movements. We’d copy the movie’s blocking and enter the Funny Girl world.
As a teen, I wrote fan letters on lined school paper filling pages about her singing and acting skills. I explained how her talent inspired me to be braver and not let my mild cerebral palsy stop me from trying to swim, play tennis, or audition for the chorus in The Eunice Players Theater’s version of Oklahoma. Yet I didn’t aspire to be a singer since my own mother had once told me “You couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.” I didn’t dream of being in movies either. I wanted to be Barbra’s friend and have her over for gumbo.
After I received form letters from her fan mail coordinator, Larry Marcus, I started addressing my letters to him. I’d write nonsense like “How can someone I adore and think so much about not even know I exist?” Every song she sang told a story that she acted out with her unique phrasing, whispering, begging, accusing, demanding, and using vocal calisthenics that took us on journeys that had us smiling, laughing, and crying (sometimes all in one song). Thank God I was a fanatical fan before the Internet because I would have become a teenaged recluse who lived online and listened to Barbra’s albums instead of hanging out with friends of my own.
Through Funny Girl, Hello Dolly, and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever Gayle, Kelly, and I shared our Streisand obsession. Without a record store in town, we’d take turns ordering her albums from KEUN, our local radio station. We co-owned The Barbra Streisand Album, The Second Album, The Third Album, and the Funny Girl movie soundtrack. However in 1970 when the Stoney End album was released, my younger sisters cared more about James Taylor and Carol King. As their music tastes matured, they gave me all their Barbra albums. I bragged, “I’ll never stop loving Barbra Streisand!” and Kelly flipped back her long, straight brown hair while Gayle shrugged her shoulders and followed her little sister into their shared bedroom.
So I’d retreat into my own room where Barbra’s movie posters and lobby cards covered my walls and ceiling. And I’d put the Color Me Barbra album on my portable record player and plug in my headphones and let my idol belt out emotions my teenaged soul understood. I especially connected to “Where Am I Going?”: “Where am I going? Why do I care? No matter where I run, I meet myself there. Looking inside me, what do I see? Anger and hope and doubt. What am I all about? And where am I going?” I told myself to be stronger and braver about my cerebral palsy. I still hid my crooked left arm in long sleeves and cursed my limping left leg. But Barbra at age 19 got a record deal with Columbia and landed a starring roll in a major Broadway show without changing her name, her nose, or her personality. Her belief in her talents and her fearlessness propelled her to success. She was my role model.
In college I took a library course that taught us how to do research. Our teacher had us create an annotated bibliography on a topic we liked: “Choose a topic you love so much you don’t get bored researching.” So I pulled heavy boxes of old periodicals from bookshelves and scanned microfiche to learn more about Barbra Streisand. I never approached another college course with such enthusiasm! That project increased my adoration as I learned about Barbra’s going to NYC alone at 17 to take acting classes and to attend auditions during the day while singing at small nightclubs in the evenings. I also connected with her passion for food and her tenacity.
These days as I delve into the 966 pages of My Name Is Barbra for the second time (I first read the autobiography; now I’m listening to my idol read the book), I re-listen to each album or rewatch a t.v. special or movie of hers to discover the creative details I missed before. Her strumming, humming “Evergreen” to Kris Kristofferson in A Star Is Born (a scene edited out of the original version) is one of the movie’s very best moments. In Yentl, I hadn’t followed the cinematic motif of Yentl crossing water, and I marveled at the glorious use of natural and staged lightning during the song “There Are Moments.” Her attention to detail as a director and her collaboration with cast and crew seemed magical. I’m “geeking out” as people used to say.
Please don’t judge my Streisand obsession. Don’t Rain on my Parade!
When a person enjoys something that gives her true joy and hope, why not allow her that inspiration? Many years ago a close friend started hating on Barbra. “Her voice is too nasal.” He knew I loved, loved Barbra Streisand. Why diss something your friend loves?
We like what we like. When one’s fanaticism hurts no one, let that parade march down the street with pride. That goes for food preferences and sports fandom as well as entertainers. Someone’s favorite team is someone else’s “What an embarrassment!” Just like one person craves seafood gumbo and another says shrimp makes them gag. Viva la difference! Let each of us adore the people, places, and things we want to. Barbra will always be “the greatest star” to me, and I hope those who disagree can keep their negativity to themselves. Let me experience a joy that shines on my soul and turns any day into a Mardi Gras parade. I smile all over every time Barbra sings, acts, writes, directs, or creates her next masterpiece. Merci beaucoup, Barbra Streisand!
Even though Momma once told me, “You can’t carry a tune in a bucket,” there’s one place I feel comfortable belting out a song – the shower. Since I prefer free-form singing – making up the lyrics I can’t remember (like “I’m singing in the rain, just singing in the rain/ I’m a crazy old fool/ Ain’t followin’ no rules”/ Just laughin’ and washin’ the blues away”) My shower is a judgement-free zone, and the hot water soothes my soul as well as eases my mind and sends my troubles circling down the drain with any funk my body has accumulated.
A year into the pandemic I confessed to my sister that I’d sometimes go two or three days without a shower or bath. Gayle was flabbergasted. “What’s wrong with you?!”
I think I didn’t like getting undressed when the weather was cold and I probably thought, “What’s the use of cleaning up?” I wasn’t going anywhere or getting cozy with anyone other than my dog or cat or husband, none of whom cared how I looked or smelled.
But I soon realized I was depriving myself of a calming, stimulating, and satisfying form of creativity. When I re-imagined the lyrics to “Singing in the Rain,” steamy water became my psychotherapist, and I always felt stronger after my shower. The singing was as necessary as the body-washing. I’d become Gene Kelly swinging on a lamp post and feeling in sync with the pouring rain.
I used to cry in the shower after my dad moved in with us. Living with an 87-year-old widower, who was part hypochondriac/part Pout-Pout Fish, was a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from! Caring for a 6’4” man in adult diapers who had more doctor appointments than a New Orleans native has Mardi Gras beads was not part of my retirement plan. My shower sobs helped me release my stress and wash away the day’s unpleasantness.
However, singing in a shower is worlds better than crying in one! Even if hearty sobs create endorphins that lie and tell me “every little thing is gonna be alright,” singing transports me into movie magic.
“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” is another shower favorite for me. I conjure up Katherine Ross riding on the handlebars of Paul Newman’s bicycle in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and my world is sunshine through the trees and Newman’s mischievous grin.
(“Raindrops are falling on my head/ And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed/ Nothing seems to fit/ Those raindrops are falling on my head/ They keep fallin’”).
Even if the afterglow of a hot shower with my rousing renditions of movie soundtrack hits lasts only until I remember my list of chores and responsibilities, I’ve washed away some fifty layers of worry. I forget my awkward limp and crooked left arm, my grown sons’ personal struggles, and the world’s most annoying cat who refuses to ever die who shares a 900-square-foot apartment with us.
These day’s my shower’s finale is “Don’t Rain on my Parade” and I become the greatest star – Barbra Streisand – on that tugboat on her way to surprise Omar Sharif in Funny Girl. “Don’t tell me not to live / Just sit and putter/ Life’s candy and the sun a ball of butter/ Don’t bring around a cloud to rain on my parade!” Music has power over reality at times, and we need moments of escape as much as we need a good washing. So I’ll choose confidence and joy over fear and worry every time.
Sittin' Ugly Sistahs 