Sometimes it’s only in retrospect that you see the patterns. I will relay this incident from my original perspective and then ask you to reconsider it in light of newly discovered information.
It was 1965. I was in the third grade. It was beautiful autumn day. The kind of day that starts out crisp but moves to sunny and warm by the afternoon. The students, at Brooklyn Elementary School, were taking their morning recess and the playground was teaming with children swinging on swings, climbing monkey bars and riding teeter-totters. These were the days when a playground was a mixture of concrete, gravel and steel. By today’s standards it was almost industrial. But this was before liability lawsuits produced a kinder, gentler American playground.
The teeter-totters, of the good old days, were massive boards that mounted on big steel pipes. The teeter-totter designers recognized that not all children were of equal size so the teeter-totter board had multiple center-point settings. You could shift the teeter-totter, to accommodate unequal loads. About 18 inches from each end, a metal handle was mounted to the wood.
We were particularly fond of giving “bumps.” This usually involved a larger person on one end of the teeter-totter. As the larger person was coming down, he or she made no attempt to stop the teeter-totter from hitting the ground. When that end of the teeter-totter came smashing down, the lighter rider would be jolted into the air, like a rodeo cowboy, with only their frantic grip on the cold, metal handle preventing them from being launched into space.
On this particular morning there were four of us on the teeter-totter, two on each end. Teresa and a playmate were on one end and I and another friend, rode the other. My side out-weighed Teresa’s side so we made the necessary adjustments to the center-point, extending Teresa’s side to give the light end more leverage. It was a wonderful time. I would smash my end into the ground, Teresa, in her bright little school dress, would fly into the air. She looked like a rag doll whose hands were tethered to the metal handle.
Now this may seem hard to believe, but someone got hurt. Teresa was unable to completely recover from being nearly thrown off, and on the down stroke, her ankle got caught under the teeter-totter. I hopped down, leaving only one person on my end. Teresa’s end came down and I ran around to see how badly she was hurt. Her friend was sitting behind her, and when I bent over to examine Teresa’s ankle, they both slid back, off the teeter-totter.
As you may recall, there was still one person on the other end of the teeter-totter. The forces of gravity prevailed and the unoccupied end of the see-saw lifted, abruptly, off the ground, quickly accelerating, until it reached an obstruction: my forehead. The force of the collision sent me sailing through the air. As I completed my arc, from teeter-totter to earth, I looked up into the into the bright, morning sky, and oddly enough, saw stars.
I crawled over to the teacher, on playground duty, who had not yet noticed me. I got to my feet and tried to get her attention, “Mrs. Barkheimer…” I stammered in a pitiful voice. She was in an animated conversation with another student, “…Mrs. Barkheimer…” Still no response, her head was turned away, but her body langage suggested that she was ignoring my rude interruption. “MRS. BARKHEIMER!” I blurted out. “John, can’t you see I’m…” She never finished her sentence. As her eyes focused on me, she stopped short and gasped. She took me by the shoulders and steered me to the principals office where there was a makeshift infirmary, and sat me on a chair.
The knot on my head grew until it became a thing of wonder. The school staff filed by, staring in amazement, wagging their heads, and clucking their tongues. The discussion centered on determining whether or not I had a concussion. I was warned not to go to sleep. If I had a concussion and went to sleep "I WOULD DIE!" Shortly after the discussion on death and dying, they called Mom and told me to walk home. I can only assume that they reasoned I couldn't fall asleep if I was walking the two blocks to my house.
This wasn't all bad. I got the day off School! When I showed up at home, my knot was large enough to astound even my mother, a woman who had seen many a serious injury in her day. She called Glenna Jean Rassmussen, our back-door neighbor, to tell her I would be coming by to show her my knot and then sent me on my way. Mrs. Rassmussen was equally impressed. I walked home and, tired from all the walking, sat in a big chair and fell asleep. Mom woke me up a couple of times, to make sure I wasn’t dead and, later, I spent the afternoon goofing around in the back yard.
It wasn’t until years later that I learned my sweet little sister, Teresa, had a dark-side. She once lured Joe off the tree-house ladder by holding a piece of candy just out of his reach. Joe plummeted to earth, breaking his arm!
Is it possible that Teresa had planned the teeter-totter incident? Feigning injury to lure me to her side, then sliding off when my head was in just the right spot?
I have presented my case. I leave it to you, the jury to decide.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Thursday, September 08, 2005
The Clown
The wood and cloth box mounted above the chalkboard crackled to life, “Miss White, would you send John Witmer to my office.” It was Mr. Satters, the principal, and as I made my way from music class down the long hallway, my life, or at least the last few months of it, flashed before my eyes.
Seven weeks early, I began my career as the sixth-grade class clown when I discovered that, over the summer, I had developed a talent. With very little effort, I could get my fellow students to laugh, out loud, in the middle of class, at totally inappropriate times. A wisecrack here, a funny voice there, an occasional goofy face and I could have them in stitches. It was intoxicating and I was addicted. I couldn’t get enough!
Mr. Meyer sat in front of the class, looking like a cross between Dragnet’s Joe Friday and Mayberry’s Deputy Barney Fife. He wore a gray sport coat, dark slacks, white shirt and a bow tie. He wore this everyday. He was regimented and he liked order and decorum. The fixed rhythm of the elementary-school schedule fit him well. But there I was, messing up his world, destined to be a thorn in his side for the balance of the school year.
I was a low-level irritant. My antics had never quite risen to the level of drawing any serious punishment because I was smart enough to back off if Mr. Meyer’s patience began to wear thin. And I saved some of my acting out for Mr. Morgan, the other, cooler sixth-grade teacher. The sixth-grade population of Brooklyn Elementary School was so large that it was split into two classes. Besides teaching history to both groups, Mr. Morgan was the football, basketball and baseball coach. Since Mr. Morgan was not my “real” teacher, I goofed around a little more in History class.
At eleven, you begin to think you’re smarter than some of the adults around you. I thought I had Mr. Meyer’s figured out. I thought I had him under control. But at eleven, you tend to overlook important things, like the fact that reports cards come out every six weeks. My grades were tolerable, not good, but not bad, B’s and C’s mostly. It was the “Checkmarks” that did me in. The report card read, “A checkmark indicates that the student needs to improve.” Under that statement was a list of behaviors:
-Respects his Teacher – Checkmark.
-Displays appropriate behavior in class – Checkmark.
-Demonstrates self-control – Checkmark.
-Completes assignments on-time – Checkmark.
…the list went on. The only box that wasn’t checked was the one that said, “Plays well with others.”
Now I was shuffling past the Gym, on my way to the office, recalling how this nightmare began. The day before, I was given my report card. After taking in the checkmark section I was in shock. I knew I was going to get an Indiana-lickin when I got home, there were no two ways about it. Hiding the report card was out of the question. All reports cards had to be returned to the school with a parent’s signature.
There was nothing to do but face the music. Mom was so stunned she handed the matter over to Dad and he was in a particularly foul mood when he inspected my report card. He took me upstairs, took off his belt and, on my bare legs, gave me one stripe for every checkmark on my report card. He sent me to bed crying and I was still smarting when I woke up the next morning. Dad had put the fear of God in me and I was determined to avoid any future run-ins with the belt. I planned to stay out of trouble. But my resolution was short-lived.
I was supposed to have completed a worksheet for my homework assignment, but seeing that being beaten, within and inch of my life, had taken up most the evening, I came to school with a blank worksheet. It was really a minor issue. Mr. Meyer assigned stacks of worksheets and each one was only a small part of the grade in any given subject. That’s how I managed to get decent grades while still receiving a checkmark for “Completes Assignments on-time.” But with Dad’s thrashing fresh in my mind, I was bound and determined I would not start the next grade period on the wrong foot.
Mr. Meyer had a practice of letting us self-grade our worksheets. He would call out the answers and we would score ourselves. He would, then, ask for our score, in roll-call order, and record it in the grade book. We rarely handed in our papers. If it was an important quiz, he would have us swap papers with our “neighbor,” and then, after grading, we handed the paper’s forward. For seven weeks, that was the drill. It never varied, at least not until that fateful day in October of 1968.
My plan was simple. I would pretend to correct my unfinished paper, and thereby avoid getting docked for another incomplete assignment, eliminating the possibility of any future report-card-related lickins. As usual, we graded our own homework assignments and, as usual, Mr. Meyer called for our grades. Then he did something, he had never done before, he told us to hand in our papers. It was time to go to Music class and he wanted us to put the papers on his desk as we left the room!
This doesn’t make sense! He has the score! He doesn’t need the paper! Has he gone mad! Why is he asking for the papers? Think, John, THINK! There has to be a way out of this. I know! I can casually drop my pencil and paper on the floor and then, when I lean over to pick them up, write the answers with Superman-like speed! …Yes!...that’s it. But I have to remember to answer one question incorrectly so it matchs the score I gave Mr. Meyer.
From the front of the room I heard, “John, what are you doing?”
“I dropped my pencil.” I said, still down on the floor behind my desk.
Write like the wind, you can do this!
“John, you need to go to Music class.” Mr. Meyer was closing in.
This isn’t working…I need a new strategy…maybe he won’t notice if I don’t hand in my paper. Maybe he’ll forget to check the papers. He’s already got the scores…Maybe he won’t check them…get rid of the evidence!
I quickly crumpled the paper into a little ball and stuffed it in my desk. When I came back from Music class, I planned to destroy the evidence when no one was looking. As I walked down the hall, I tried to relax and once I got to my seat I almost succeeded in forgetting about the whole, ugly mess, that is, until the intercom crackled to life.
As I rounded the corner and went into the office I could see Mr. Satters. Seated across from him was Mr. Meyer and in his hand was a paper, my paper, a paper that had obviously been, at one point in time, a crumpled ball.
I cannot remember the opening exchange. The utter fear of hearing the door to the Principal’s office close behind me caused me to blank out. It’s possible they said nothing before I tearfully shrieked, “Oh please, please, don’t call my parents! My father will BEAT ME!”
They seemed stunned. I tried to explain that my bad report card had caused Clarence to come down like the wrath of God and that now I feared for my life. They seemed to struggle with how to proceed, in light of these revelations. In the end, Mr. Meyer gave me a short warning against any future tomfoolery and he closed with a statement that would have seemed just as fitting come out of the mouth of his look-alike, Joe Friday, “…and if we have any more trouble with you, young man, we will call your father, and that’s not a threat, it’s a promise!”
I left the office with both the joy and exhaustion of one who has narrowly escaped death. I turned over a new leaf that day. I gave up the Class-Clown mantle, ceding it to Charlie Wilson, whose father wasn’t around to deal out the consequences of a bad report card. My next report card was checkmark-free. Although my behavior had improved, I will always wondered if the checkmark-free report card was the result of me shaping up, or the result of my Oscar-winning performance, in the principals office that October day in 1968.
Seven weeks early, I began my career as the sixth-grade class clown when I discovered that, over the summer, I had developed a talent. With very little effort, I could get my fellow students to laugh, out loud, in the middle of class, at totally inappropriate times. A wisecrack here, a funny voice there, an occasional goofy face and I could have them in stitches. It was intoxicating and I was addicted. I couldn’t get enough!
Mr. Meyer sat in front of the class, looking like a cross between Dragnet’s Joe Friday and Mayberry’s Deputy Barney Fife. He wore a gray sport coat, dark slacks, white shirt and a bow tie. He wore this everyday. He was regimented and he liked order and decorum. The fixed rhythm of the elementary-school schedule fit him well. But there I was, messing up his world, destined to be a thorn in his side for the balance of the school year.
I was a low-level irritant. My antics had never quite risen to the level of drawing any serious punishment because I was smart enough to back off if Mr. Meyer’s patience began to wear thin. And I saved some of my acting out for Mr. Morgan, the other, cooler sixth-grade teacher. The sixth-grade population of Brooklyn Elementary School was so large that it was split into two classes. Besides teaching history to both groups, Mr. Morgan was the football, basketball and baseball coach. Since Mr. Morgan was not my “real” teacher, I goofed around a little more in History class.
At eleven, you begin to think you’re smarter than some of the adults around you. I thought I had Mr. Meyer’s figured out. I thought I had him under control. But at eleven, you tend to overlook important things, like the fact that reports cards come out every six weeks. My grades were tolerable, not good, but not bad, B’s and C’s mostly. It was the “Checkmarks” that did me in. The report card read, “A checkmark indicates that the student needs to improve.” Under that statement was a list of behaviors:
-Respects his Teacher – Checkmark.
-Displays appropriate behavior in class – Checkmark.
-Demonstrates self-control – Checkmark.
-Completes assignments on-time – Checkmark.
…the list went on. The only box that wasn’t checked was the one that said, “Plays well with others.”
Now I was shuffling past the Gym, on my way to the office, recalling how this nightmare began. The day before, I was given my report card. After taking in the checkmark section I was in shock. I knew I was going to get an Indiana-lickin when I got home, there were no two ways about it. Hiding the report card was out of the question. All reports cards had to be returned to the school with a parent’s signature.
There was nothing to do but face the music. Mom was so stunned she handed the matter over to Dad and he was in a particularly foul mood when he inspected my report card. He took me upstairs, took off his belt and, on my bare legs, gave me one stripe for every checkmark on my report card. He sent me to bed crying and I was still smarting when I woke up the next morning. Dad had put the fear of God in me and I was determined to avoid any future run-ins with the belt. I planned to stay out of trouble. But my resolution was short-lived.
I was supposed to have completed a worksheet for my homework assignment, but seeing that being beaten, within and inch of my life, had taken up most the evening, I came to school with a blank worksheet. It was really a minor issue. Mr. Meyer assigned stacks of worksheets and each one was only a small part of the grade in any given subject. That’s how I managed to get decent grades while still receiving a checkmark for “Completes Assignments on-time.” But with Dad’s thrashing fresh in my mind, I was bound and determined I would not start the next grade period on the wrong foot.
Mr. Meyer had a practice of letting us self-grade our worksheets. He would call out the answers and we would score ourselves. He would, then, ask for our score, in roll-call order, and record it in the grade book. We rarely handed in our papers. If it was an important quiz, he would have us swap papers with our “neighbor,” and then, after grading, we handed the paper’s forward. For seven weeks, that was the drill. It never varied, at least not until that fateful day in October of 1968.
My plan was simple. I would pretend to correct my unfinished paper, and thereby avoid getting docked for another incomplete assignment, eliminating the possibility of any future report-card-related lickins. As usual, we graded our own homework assignments and, as usual, Mr. Meyer called for our grades. Then he did something, he had never done before, he told us to hand in our papers. It was time to go to Music class and he wanted us to put the papers on his desk as we left the room!
This doesn’t make sense! He has the score! He doesn’t need the paper! Has he gone mad! Why is he asking for the papers? Think, John, THINK! There has to be a way out of this. I know! I can casually drop my pencil and paper on the floor and then, when I lean over to pick them up, write the answers with Superman-like speed! …Yes!...that’s it. But I have to remember to answer one question incorrectly so it matchs the score I gave Mr. Meyer.
From the front of the room I heard, “John, what are you doing?”
“I dropped my pencil.” I said, still down on the floor behind my desk.
Write like the wind, you can do this!
“John, you need to go to Music class.” Mr. Meyer was closing in.
This isn’t working…I need a new strategy…maybe he won’t notice if I don’t hand in my paper. Maybe he’ll forget to check the papers. He’s already got the scores…Maybe he won’t check them…get rid of the evidence!
I quickly crumpled the paper into a little ball and stuffed it in my desk. When I came back from Music class, I planned to destroy the evidence when no one was looking. As I walked down the hall, I tried to relax and once I got to my seat I almost succeeded in forgetting about the whole, ugly mess, that is, until the intercom crackled to life.
As I rounded the corner and went into the office I could see Mr. Satters. Seated across from him was Mr. Meyer and in his hand was a paper, my paper, a paper that had obviously been, at one point in time, a crumpled ball.
I cannot remember the opening exchange. The utter fear of hearing the door to the Principal’s office close behind me caused me to blank out. It’s possible they said nothing before I tearfully shrieked, “Oh please, please, don’t call my parents! My father will BEAT ME!”
They seemed stunned. I tried to explain that my bad report card had caused Clarence to come down like the wrath of God and that now I feared for my life. They seemed to struggle with how to proceed, in light of these revelations. In the end, Mr. Meyer gave me a short warning against any future tomfoolery and he closed with a statement that would have seemed just as fitting come out of the mouth of his look-alike, Joe Friday, “…and if we have any more trouble with you, young man, we will call your father, and that’s not a threat, it’s a promise!”
I left the office with both the joy and exhaustion of one who has narrowly escaped death. I turned over a new leaf that day. I gave up the Class-Clown mantle, ceding it to Charlie Wilson, whose father wasn’t around to deal out the consequences of a bad report card. My next report card was checkmark-free. Although my behavior had improved, I will always wondered if the checkmark-free report card was the result of me shaping up, or the result of my Oscar-winning performance, in the principals office that October day in 1968.
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