Looking back, my time in the 6th grade class was one of the more rewarding in my pursuit of a higher learning. I think now it was due to a combination of two important things: A great set of teachers and a clash of hormones. The combination of the two can produce memorable times. It was the best class I was ever involved with and I was likely shaped more during this time than over any comparable period. We accomplished much as a group, some good some bad, but neither lacked not for originality. Seventy-five sets of hormones properly constrained produces such.
To provide an idea of our limits, we started a petition to have the PE coach removed. We were twelve years old and calling for heads. It did not go over well. Fortunately for yours truly, though an instigator and passionate advocate, my John Hancock was not of my own. Even more fortunately, the assemblage of great teachers separated fact from forgery. I never confessed. I was above average intelligence, so I knew better. Besides, being paddled while lying face down on one of those long lunch room tables was not something even a dummy would volunteer for. It’s funny how the empty and wide basement hallways of stone so readily yielded their silence to those primal screams. The screams echo still today, though the building has been long demolished. I learned a lesson here.
But I have digressed. Why is it Mrs. Grays fault? She was both my homeroom and English teacher and I was also one of her favorites. Education wasn’t as adorned back then as it is today. We had reading, writing, social studies, math and some speeling. That was pretty much it. Science would come later if at all. Manners were taught. Rewarded or noted, for either the use or for the lack of. Respect was expected. You toed the line. There was no choice. It was required. The PE teacher may again come to mind at this time but, in that case, we weren’t really aiming to be disrespectful, we just wanted a different PE Coach. There is a difference. Particularly, in the mind of a twelve-year-old.
Mrs. Gray was not necessarily the best teacher I ever had but she was hands down the most influential. Excellence impacting hormones can provide a focus. She had a way about her. She was as sweet as the summer day is long and she loved her charge. There are people in this world that wind up doing precisely what they were most suited for. Mrs. Gray was such. I truly believe that she was born a teacher. Bouncing from the womb with chalk in one hand and an eraser in the other. In times such as those, teachers, especially the exceptional ones were held in a higher regard. Especially, in a small town. I miss that form of respect. You don’t see much of it on the telly these days.
Our 6th grade class, with the help of all 6th grade teachers (Mrs. Gray, Mrs. Allen and Mrs., Clifton) staged a couple of plays for the upper classes. One was a Thanksgiving play, in which I had the part of William Bradford. A great name but a boring part. I wanted to be William Brewster. That was the better part. My “Fear of Bradford”, borne of that day, may be why I still shy away from any type of public speaking.
The second play, I can’t recall nearly as well. Perhaps because it was probably without as much form as a play specific to the celebration of Thanksgiving. Maybe because it was staged using a combination of ours and the upper classes? I don’t recall clearly. It wasn’t memorable, except for the end.
At plays end, Mrs. Gray took the time to recognize each of the 6th grade participants. She gave each their very own nickname. She was special in that way. She did a good job on this except she forgot one name. The one forgotten being yours truly. It hurt at the time. I was probably her favorite and I can remember the wonder it caused me to have. A wonder in why I had been forgotten.
The day of this second play was near the end of the school year. A Monday probably, with school’s end coming on Wednesday or Thursday. Either way, there was a passing of time of at least a day between the play and our release for the summer. The perceived slight bothered me still on that passing day. So, Mr. Ugly, the duly elected king of the 6th grade dance, chosen in an election that was stuffed in my favor by a girl who had a crush on me, was having a bad day. For a penny a vote, she bought the election fair and square. Probably didn’t eat her lunch for a week or better to do. School lunches were cheap and good back then. I remember her name well but for fear of privacy concerns, I won’t post.
It was Mrs. Grays idea to have the queen of the 6th grade have, as her opposite, Mr. Ugly. I think she did it because of me, in good humor of course. She was special in that way. Proof to this is found in the fact that the very next year they had a King and Queen of the 6th grade. Jamie was the King that year. So, Mr. Ugly, the one and only, was having a bad day. Most everyone does. No big deal. Except I really adored Mrs. Gray and I couldn’t understand what I had done. School years passed quickly then. The good you were going to miss until the dread of the new arrived. I hated saying goodbye to the good and even more, to do so while feeling confused. I never even considered the possibility that that she might have simply forgot. Mrs. Gray made few mistakes. She was special in that way.
The final day came. It was time to say goodbye to the teachers for like forever and your classmates for that summer. As we were being dismissed, at the final bell of the final day, Mrs. Gray called me aside and handed me a note. Within the note were the words that would stay with me for a lifetime except I can’t recall precisely what was written. I do remember she expressed her joy in me having been her student and within this she provided me the nickname she had chosen for me: “Cheerful Cliff”. She had also tucked a single dollar bill inside. Mrs. Gray was special like that. My heart soared more so for the note, the remembrance, than for the dollar.
I suppose I was cheerful back then. I know I was exuberant at that moment. The cheerfulness over time would take a hit. It remains here but it isn’t so easy to recognize. Passing time and the events that accompany such, can disguise some things. I don’t think I have changed that much though. Mrs. Gray was right, and that personalized note and the single dollar are among my most cherished possessions, even though memories are all they be.
Mrs. Gray was special, so why is anything her fault, particularly after close to 50 years? It is simple. In addition to the basic rigors of everyday school, Mrs. Gray provided life lessons. She did so with the note and the dollar, and she did so at most every crossroad our young minds came upon during this time. Much I observed in 6th grade I carry to this day.
It was a typical day. Homeroom time. A time when announcements were made, and gossip passed. On this day, upper classmen came to make an announcement. Sharon and Linda, cute 8th grade cheerleaders, were the school criers for this morning. Now remember that I was only a bit over twelve years of age, maybe 13. I had yet to fully appreciate team sports and girls. The focus each required was just coming into being. Yet, despite these lacking’s, me being the cheerful sort with the personality that would propel me to become the Mr. Ugly of 6th grade, believed I knew it all.
The girls entered, and before they could even begin talking, they were greeted with a wolf whistle. It was a moment unexpected and marked with a certain point of exclamation. The whistler was pleased and quite proud. Ecstatic, as a description for the feeling in this instant, would have been an understatement. I know this because the whistler was me. The joy just discovered didn’t last though. Mrs. Gray abruptly called the matter to an immediate halt.
My ability to whisper in class was not one of my better talents because my voice traveled so. I am always looking for reasons as to why I am willing to talk so much but to not do so before crowds of people. Maybe this is one. I was certainly circumspect to whisper in class back then so maybe it has carried to this day alongside my Fear of Bradford. However, it wasn’t my carrying voice that would get me in trouble on this day. Instead it was a rather loud and ill-conceived whistle, emitted while sitting in the last seat of the first row adjacent to the teacher’s desk. Everybody instantly knew who did it. I somehow think that might have been the point.
Rising quickly from her desk, Mrs. Gray directed me forward. Paddle in hand she motioned me to turn towards her desk and immediately drove out the demons of disrespect that had taken comfort within me. It was quick. Painful in its own way but more embarrassing than anything. I returned and sat in silence as Linda and Sharon made their announcement. In many other times such as these I would have whistled once again; I had that type of defiance in me. But not on this day. Not before Mrs. Gray. She was right on this one and more importantly, I knew she was. I carry the lesson of that date with me still. She was special in that way. A lot of the better values that I carry today, I place blame for these on where it rightly belongs: With her. She wouldn’t mind. She was special in that way.
Feel the Burg 