From The Arbor May Is Summer's Prelude
These days, young adults may be more concerned that Mother’s Day falls the second Sunday in May as opposed to sharing my wonderment with respect to the natural world. After all, they probably know little of the song I’ve mentioned, but they still have a mother that deserves their praise and honor. Some mothers, my wife included, have the good fortune of having been born early in May and get double the attention and adoration whenever their birthday coincides with Mother’s Day. For millions of schoolchildren, May is the second most anticipated month of the year, at least to my way of thinking. Christmas is observed in December, and unless I’m sadly mistaken, December takes the top slot for the most-looked-forward-to month. However, since most school years end in May, I’m suggesting May runs December a close second. Unlike most of the peers of my youth, I could have gotten by with a two-week summer vacation and been ready to return to school. I wouldn’t say I was crazy about school, but most of my friends were my classmates, and when school was not in session, they were not readily accessible. This whole practice of a three-month summer vacation from schooling arose from our agrarian past, when children were needed to help with planting and harvesting crops on the family farm. And, there were times, according to my dad, when children were held out of school to help with the cotton harvest of late summer and early fall. Traditionally, May is also graduation month for high school seniors, though ever-lengthening school years are threatening that tradition. My class graduated May 27, 1960, and for many years graduation on such a late date was a rarity. Graduation from high school is a milestone in ones life. It marks an educational achievement, and it gives each graduate pause to consider what his or her future holds. For some, it is a time to reflect on the importance of those who made the event possible, namely their parents and teachers. I pity the soul who is unable to appreciate the sacrifices others have made that their own life might be made better, but I praise those hearts that are thankful for all who played a role in their success. In this issue of The Bodock Post are several articles that strive to show the importance of teachers and to impart tribute to the teaching profession by thanking certain individuals. The reader may or may not know the individuals being honored, but I’m confident the mere reading of these articles will trigger a memory or two of individuals that were important in the life of the reader. We at The Post are indebted to Jo Ann Stone Wilder, who commented, "[R]eading your April edition, prompted me to write about one of my favorite teachers," and whose submission inspired our editorial board to recall certain teachers who influenced us and to share them in this issue. We don’t have a pre-set or planned calendar of monthly or seasonal issues. We’re still flying by the seat of our pants. Maybe, when we’re all retired, there’ll be time for such planning…maybe not. If we inspire others to contact a former teacher to express appreciation for that individual, we’ll consider this issue a grand success. Additionally, we are grateful for the many guest contributors in this issue whose memories we are sure you’ll enjoy. From The Arbor is a regular feature of our newsletter from which our Editor of the Month introduces each issue, season, or theme, as the case may be. To subscribe, comment or submit a story for consideration, email us at editor@bodockpost.com. ~ By Wayne Carter, Associate Editor and Publisher
Making A Difference My Fourth Grade Teache
Changing schools three times while in the fourth grade brought me to Pontotoc, my mother’s birthplace and where many relatives lived. My dad was an electrician and worked large construction jobs, none of which were in Mississippi, so we moved to the towns close to his job to be together as a family, which was the reason I attended several schools before settling in Pontotoc. He decided that I should not have my schooling interrupted any more after reaching fourth grade, and since my mother’s roots were in Pontotoc, the decision was made to plant us firmly in the red clay of Pontotoc. The fourth grade that year began for me in Barlow, Kentucky, after which we moved to Bessemer, Alabama, and then finally to Pontotoc. For many, changing school this frequently would have been daunting, but for me it was just another adventure and the opportunity to meet new friends. The morning I enrolled in Pontotoc Elementary, my mother, Mozelle Phillips Stone, took me to the principal’s office, that of Mr. Leroy Robinson. I quickly learned from him that he and my mother had taught math together many years before in Randolph, so he immediately started calling me "little Mozelle," which for a fourth grader was a little embarrassing, but it also made me feel very proud. After the enrollment forms were filled out, Mr. Robinson escorted us to my new classroom, which at the time was in the basement of the high school. The basement was damp feeling and gloomy, with a musky smell that all basements have. I believe the original elementary had burned and classrooms were set up wherever possible. The location looked nothing like other schools I had attended and I was a little leery, but anxious to see who my teacher would be. Mr. Robinson knocked on the door and we were invited in by my new teacher, Miss Annie Nesbit. Mr. Robinson announced to the whole class that I was a new student, which was clearly obvious, and that he and my mother had taught school together, after which he and my mother immediately exited, leaving me on my own. As is usual when a new student arrives, all those seated in the classroom gave me the once over. Miss Annie found a desk for me, a book, and then proceeded with her class, while I sat there looking around and sizing up the room and the occupants within. I guess there were not many outside transfers into Pontotoc Elementary during the mid fifties, and with the strange stares I was receiving, I began to feel a little odd and my usual confidence began to fade. In the previous schools I had attended, the students were more accepting of new kids, as most of those schools were located in areas where big construction projects were going on and many of the transfers were children of the workers. Some of the students spoke to me, but I cannot remember any one particular person taking the time to welcome me. That was okay, though, as I was not a shy person and finally managed to break the ice with a couple of my fellow classmates, who, until this day remain friends of mine. Very quickly I realized how much I enjoyed being a student in Miss Annie’s room. Never, at the tender age of ten, had I been exposed to such an unusual teacher, who was both genteel and sophisticated, as well as firm and focused on teaching. Today, I can still clearly visualize Miss Annie in front of the classroom with her beautiful dresses, her well-coiffed hair, and her square, or maybe it was oval-shaped topaz ring sitting regally on her smooth long finger. I think I also remember that she wore a watch pin, which fascinated me. I constantly watched her, sometimes expecting her to rise up and float off as if she were a fairy or some ethereal being, who was only pretending to be a teacher so that she could spend time with children in the real world. She was a motivator and a real example of dedication to education. She never demeaned a student, although she was firm in her words and she very much desired success for her fourth graders. Today, I attribute my love of reading to Miss Annie’s influence. When I visited Pontotoc in later years and saw her somewhere, she always remembered me, as I suspect she remembered all of her former students. Driving by her huge white house on Oxford Street, with its verdant lawn and huge green ferns and white rocking chairs on the porch, still held its mysteries for me, and I was further convinced that she really might be other worldly…sent to live as a teacher in the real world on a mission to enrich the lives of her students in the fourth grade at Pontotoc Elementary. I’m quite certain that many students have, at one time or another had a fascination or an obsession with a particular teacher. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this fourth grade teacher would impact my life and while I had some wonderful teachers during my school days in Pontotoc, none would ever compare with the lovely" Miss Annie," a teacher who really did make a difference. ~ By Jo Ann Stone Wilder, Guest Contributor Biographical Sketch: The former Jo Ann Stone, PHS Class of ’63, is married to Joe Wilder, and they have two children, Rachel and Bill, and two grandchildren, with another expected in September. Jo Ann and Joe have lived in Texas since 1976 and in Bastrop since 2000, where she recently retired as Executive Director of Bastrop County Teen Court. With more time to spare, she now concentrates on writing, drawing, reading, and listening to great blues music and Bob Dylan. Her reading library includes anything from mysteries by James Lee Burke to Russian novels, and she especially appreciates the writing of Southern authors. She enjoys the creative process of writing and is continuously looking for fodder to feed her prose.
Miss Polly Sunday School Teacher
My family has a long history of teaching, according to Aunt Ellenor, a retired teacher and librarian. The most well known is N.B. Hardeman, one of the namesakes of Freed-Hardeman University. We called him Uncle Brodie. Most of my extended family teaches Sunday school occasionally, and my daughter has a degree in education. Me? I have taught in local colleges and universities for over thirty years, and teach internal courses at my work place from time to time in a mentoring capacity. It's something I love to do. It's something I may do full time once I retire from industry. For now I have to make a living. JFK remarked once we pay plumbers more than we pay those to whom we entrust the education of our children. I cherish the experiences I had in graduate school at Christian Brothers University under great teachers, challengers, mentors, and friends like Dr Deek Hensley, Dr Ray House, and Dr Craig Blackman. These are men on whose shoulders many people, including me, stand. I was honored when they asked me to stay and teach part time in their engineering school graduate program. Momma was a schoolteacher in a one room school house in Montezuma, TN back in the days when schoolmarms were not allowed to be married. My sister Barbara Ann ended that career after a few years. With the floor length full bodied dresses they wore, she and Daddy managed to keep their marriage secret for most of the pregnancy. One of Momma's funny stories is about those full dresses. She said the first miracle she ever saw was a mouse running up a teacher’s dress. She caught it between her knees and squeezed a quart of water out of it. Momma taught all of us how to read and write before we started the first grade. I started a year early, and Amy spent one day in the first grade. Recently, we attended Mrs. Polly Clement's funeral. She was a dedicated lifelong Sunday school teacher, having taught my children for many years in their childhood. I had a pang of guilt when I realized I had never, not even once in all those years, said a word of thanks to that dear Christian lady. I am so sorry about that. I try to remember nowadays to give a word of thanks to my Sunday school teacher. It's well deserved and too little practiced. ~ By Carl Wayne Hardeman, Editor
School Days At Times A Struggle Wow, kids, kids, and more kids. I didn’t know that there were so many kids in the whole world. It was the first day of school at the Main Street Elementary School in Humboldt, Tennessee, and there I was sitting in a giant room they called an auditorium. Most of the kids were strangers to me. I had been around the kids in the neighborhood, but here were more than I had ever seen in one place before. Finally, a large man in a dark suit walked out onto the stage and hushed everyone. He brought the teachers out on the stage, one by one, called out a list of student’s names, and sent them away to yet another room with the teacher. My teacher assigned us to a desk and told us this would be where we would sit for the rest of the year. She pointed to the blackboard, where she had written her name, and told us that her name was Mrs. Keadle. Then, she told us the rules: no talking, no running, no gum chewing, and no picking on the girls. It did not sound like there would be any fun going on in her room. Reading, writing, and learning numbers sounded like a lot of work and no play to me. What happened to all the fun Mom said school would be? However, before long, school was old hat, and all of a sudden I was in junior high. At Humboldt High, we moved from room to room all over the school and sometimes from building to building. There were lockers to keep books and jackets in and lockers in the gym to keep our gym clothes. I didn’t sign on for exercise, but this was a requirement. Yuck. Not only did I have to study more, but I had to take gym class, and I had to strip naked and take a shower after class. Golly, back then I thought one bath a day was enough? In the ninth grade, we were introduced to R.O.T.C., and this became something I soon found to my liking. The teachers were retired military personnel and were a lot more fun to be around. Lt. Col. William G. White was our SAI, and he had more scars than Carter’s had little liver pills. Each scar had its own story, and each had its own lesson to go with it. I suppose this was my favorite time in school. I didn’t like sports because I was slow, but in R.O.T.C. I seemed to fit in. I made rank pretty fast and excelled in the Color Guard. I was a big kid and able to handle an M-1 rifle with the greatest of ease. The Queen Ann Salute was a hard move, but for me it came easy. By the end of my third year I had made the rank of Cadet Colonel and would have been battalion commander my senior year, but I was uprooted and moved back to Mississippi. I spent my senior year at North Panola High School in Sardis, Mississippi, which is where I meet Coach Trotter, my 1st period biology teacher. He had the most interesting class of all I took that year. That is, till I showed up one morning with a paper sack. That particular morning, while waiting on the bus, I discovered a cool snake. The snake would lash at you with his tail before he would strike at you, so I ran back in our country store and got a paper sack. Then, I was notorious for catching snakes and taking them to school. Little did I know that this particular snake was actually a copperhead. Coach got real uneasy when I arrived for class that morning. I sat the sack on the table that he taught from and started unrolling the top. Before Coach could say, "Don’t do that", I turned the sack upside-down and dumped it. Coach grabbed his paddle and started beating the snake. Little did I know that I would be next, so needless to say, once I recovered from the whoopin’ of my life, I lost interest in snakes of all kinds. Mrs. Keadle, I know that you are looking down from Heaven; thank you for getting me started in life. Colonel White, I thank you for the stories and the lessons. Thank you for the discipline in my life, for without it, I don’t believe I would have made it this far. Coach, thank you for the multiple whoopin’s; they provided another discipline that I needed. I wouldn’t trade them in for anything. These three teachers made the greatest differences in my life, and each has my utmost respect. ~ By Tim Burress, Guest Contributor Biographical Sketch: Tim Burress lives in New Albany, MS. He and wife, Janet, are avid gardeners. The landscape of their home has numerous roses, daylilies, azaleas, and flowering plants. Tim writes "Gardening with Tim" which appears in the local paper.
First Grade Memories A Wardrobe To Envy Miss Cummings must have been a Saint to put up with us first graders, with all our runny noses, skinned knees, elbows, and other maladies common to country kids. If we ran a fever they would give us an aspirin and lay us down in the teachers lounge. Moms did not have cars to come get sick kids, we just toughed it out till school was over, then either walked home or rode the school bus. Our class of about 25 or 30 was all in one large room. Ours was a cheerful room with plenty of windows. The "black-board" (chalk-board) ran the entire width of one wall. We had ample space between our desks and the black-board to do skits or other activities; plenty of room for active first graders. Having solved the problem of cursive writing in my mind, I printed my assignment on the black board and when completed, I simply drew a line from the bottom of one letter to the next. Well, it sort-of looked like cursive to me. While Miss Cummings read "Jack be Nimble, Jack be Quick," I was supposed to jump over a candle stick. For some reason she wanted me to jump with my hands behind my back. It took three tries to get it done the way she wanted it. My arms wanted to help with the jumping. There was a kudzu patch between the school building and Oxford Street. That was a favorite play area in the spring as the kudzu began to grow. We would strip the leaves from the vines and make "harness" for the guys to wear with long reins for the driver. Sometimes it was a one-mule hitch and sometimes a team hitch. We traveled hundreds of miles with one driving and the others playing "mule." We literally wore out the kudzu patch. Clothes and fashion were far from a first grade boy’s mind, just something you had to do because Momma said so. I can remember sliding down the steep grade near the lunchroom, head first, on my stomach. It was a grassy slope and the sliding was fun and most of the boys tried it several times. By the time I arrived home, the shirt buttons were gone, the pocket was just hanging on, and it was stained with grass and dirt from top to bottom. Momma ordered most of my clothes from Sears, Roebuck, & Company in Memphis. She would use her handy-dandy tape measure to get my sizes just as the catalog instructed. For this first year of school, before cold weather arrived, she ordered me three "Roy Rogers’" sweatshirts. They were sort of orange colored with the picture of Roy astride Trigger printed in black on the front side. Trigger was rearing up, and Roy was waving his hat, a typical pose for them. Along with the shirts she ordered a pair of Roy Rogers’ gloves; fabric hands, leather cuffs (actually painted cardboard) with fringe that hung down. WOW! This little red headed guy was a happy kid. I was the envy of all the boys in the class. However, there was a problem. Two shirts were perfect, but the third one was not so good. Somehow they had printed Roy and Trigger on the back-side of the shirt. The way the shirts were made, if I wore Roy on the front, like all real cowboys should, it rode high on my neck and bugged me to no end. It felt like I was being choked to death. To make my neck feel better, I tried turning the shirt around with Roy on the back, but all the boys laughed at me. That would never do. Thinking back, first graders probably did have a little pride in what they wore, even in 1943. The new shirts did limit my vast wardrobe somewhat. I could not wear any of my favorite bib overalls; they covered up Roy and Trigger. I’m not sure what actually became of that shirt, it may still be stuffed way down in the bottom of a drawer somewhere, waiting for Roy to ride Trigger to the front side of the shirt. ~ By Ralph Jones, Managing Editor
Books 4 Sail Boys Will Be Boys It was late spring in 1956 and the senior class at Pontotoc High School was winding down to graduation. The school building was not air conditioned in those days so the windows were usually open at that time of year. One could hear the outside activities with the birds chirping and other sounds of spring drifting through the windows along with a nice refreshing spring breeze. Algebra II was an afternoon class on the second floor taught by Mrs. Henry. The classroom was on the south side of the building so the teacher’s lounge was visible from that particular room’s windows and vice-versa. Algebra II was one of those courses that one could readily pass with little or no investment of time outside the classroom other than to do the required homework. Mrs. Henry was an excellent teacher so if one paid close attention in class, that was usually good enough to get a passing grade. Mrs. Henry always seated her students in alphabetical order starting from the right side of the room from her vantage point. Arnold being early in the alphabet, I was seated near the front of the row next to the windows with John Bedingfield right behind me. This was a recipe for mischief!
Well, no bad deed goes unrewarded, so I promptly tossed John’s book out the window! Then John turned to a classmate beside him and asked for her book. The young lady had observed what was going on and handed over her book anyway. It too went sailing out the window. I had done the same with another classmate’s book. By now the whole classroom with the exception of Mrs. Henry saw what was going on. Suddenly it turned into what looked like a well choreographed event. When Mrs. Henry was facing the chalkboard, books were moving to the left and flying out the window and when she turned to face the class, book movement stopped. Within minutes, the classroom was virtually cleared of Algebra books. Someone in the teachers’ lounge had been witnessing this raining down of textbooks and reported it to Miss Thompson. Miss Thompson was the school principal and a strict disciplinarian. Suddenly she appeared in the doorway at the back of the classroom glaring across the room directly at John and me. Mrs. Henry asked if she could help. Miss Thompson said, without taking her eyes off of us, "I want to see those two Yard Birds over there, out here in the hallway!" It was panic time! Would we be expelled for willful destruction of school property or maybe just for general misbehavior? Would we be denied the opportunity to graduate on schedule?!? At no time did anyone ever stop to ask how we were able to get our hands on all the books in the classroom. We had thrown them out for sure but almost every other student in that classroom was an accomplice. That seemed to be a fairly major point that Miss Thompson overlooked. In the hallway, we were dressed down as only Miss Thompson could do with her steely brown eyes searing holes right through us. Finally, she ordered us to retrieve all the books and return them to their rightful owners. No other punishment was mentioned. She probably felt that if she could just manage to tolerate John and me for a few more days, we’d be outta there for good and forever. We did as we were instructed in retrieving the books and nothing else was ever mentioned. Needless to say, we kept our noses clean until graduation day. We later admitted to each other that we had really dodged a bullet that day! ~ by James A. Arnold, Guest Contributor Biographical Sketch: James A. "Jim" Arnold and his wife, Juanita, make their home in Easley, South Carolina. Jim teaches at the Tri-County Technical College in Pendleton, South Carolina.
Influential Teachers A Thankful Look Back It would be difficult, at best, for me to name a favorite teacher. Because my elementary years were so disjoined with me attending schools in four different towns throughout north Mississippi, there are some teachers, whose names I can no longer recall. For example, I cannot dredge up the names of any of my teachers in grades one, two, or three. However, my fellow students in Okolona, Mississippi instilled in me a fear of my 4th Grade teacher, Miss Jo Wesson, a good half-year before I was in her classroom. "She’s mean," they warned. "And, you’ll have to learn your multiplication tables to pass fourth grade." Stern may have been a better way to describe Miss Wesson; I don’t remember her being mean. Memorizing the multiplication tables all the way through the twelves wasn’t easy, but once mastered, I’ve never forgotten them. Mrs. Chandler was my fifth grade teacher in Okolona, and I was smitten by her beauty. Apparently, my brain wasn’t fully developed, for as a ten-year-old I wrote her a note explaining that I wanted to marry her when I grew up. If not for infatuation, how else can I explain her coaxing me into humiliating myself by trying to sing a song, ill-suited for my vocal register, as part of a classroom talent contest? At the time, I’d not heard of Alfalfa of "The Little Rascals" fame, but my voice cracked and squeaked in a fashion similar to his when singing. It would really help my memory to have a few yearbooks from my elementary school years. But, money for that sort of thing was always in short supply. Fortunately, I improved my methods for begging and cajoling my parents and managed to secure an annual/ yearbook for my sophomore, junior, and senior years at Pontotoc High. School-hopping ceased once my family moved back to Pontotoc, where I started the sixth grade. Sadly, having left the Okolona Public School system as something of a big-man-on-the-campus and budding Romeo, being the new kid on the block in Pontotoc required starting all over again. While I attained the respect of most of my peers during my high school years, my ego never fully recovered from the deflation rendered by the change of campuses. In high school, I was privileged to have three excellent English teachers, Mrs. Fay Caldwell, Mrs. Wayne Leech, and Mrs. Hazel "Hazie" Furr. Mrs. Caldwell hammered me with enough grammar to enable me to write a respectable sentence even today. Mrs. Leech and Mrs. Furr worked on my oral communication skills and each of them required my classmates and me to recite poems and deliver speeches in front of their respective classes. Mrs. G. T. Pound had the patience required to train this youth to "touch type" on a manual typewriter’s blind keyboard. After struggling a few weeks with an accounting class she taught to some adults one summer, I became convinced I had no future as a CPA and dropped the class. Don Mallard taught me some practical skills in Shop class, skills involving woodworking and metal welding, though neither of which were able to lure me away from my interest in science and a determination to become a chemist. To others, Mr. Mallard taught the surest way to incur his wrath was to call him "duck" or make a quacking sound in the hallway. Jr. High coach and teacher, Carl Lowry, who later returned following a stint in the Army and became Principal, nurtured my scientific interest when I was in the 8th Grade. Many of the axioms and postulates he had us memorize, I remember to this day. Frank Peddle taught me basic Biology and later the fundamentals of Chemistry. He also threw in some memorization techniques that would help in the following years. The only math teacher I remember in High School was Mrs. Estelle Henry. I had no trouble with math in her classes, though I’m sure she had a hard time keeping me focused. I seldom cracked a book outside of the classroom and should have been horsewhipped for settling for a B average when I could have done better. Mr. Wayne Jackson treated me better than I treated him. He taught journalism and history, neither of which were items of interest in my high school days, although much of his expository teaching of history and civics has stayed with me. I helped with the "Pow Wow," the campus newspaper, one year and should have tried journalism. I doubt I would have become a writer any earlier than in the last decade and a half of my life, but I might be a better one today.
No compilation of teacher memories, in my case, would be complete, should I overlook the influence of Miss Sarah Wright, Bible teacher at Pontotoc High School. Few individuals had such a strong influence on their students as did she, and I was no exception. She was a staunch devotee of The Scofield Reference Bible, KJV. I esteemed her knowledge of the Bible and ranked her as living a Godly life. Sarah Wright, a nurse early in her career, could have kept to that noble calling or become a professor or a nun, for that matter, but she devoted her life to teaching all who sat in her classroom that God is not an absentee owner of planet Earth or its inhabitants. She held to the belief that God’s love can be understood by a child or one with a child-like faith, those His ways seem foolish to many. In my brief remembrances of certain influential teachers from my elementary, junior high, and high school years, my intent is not to overlook others who played a similar role in my life, but I mention these whose memory has been kept alive in my heart as individuals of note in their chosen profession that just happened to have helped make me the person I am today. ~ By Wayne Carter, Associate Editor and Publisher
Sarah Donaldson Had A Secret Yen For Retirement
That year, Mama told me the same thing she said at the first of every school year, "If you will be good to your teacher, your teacher will be good to you." I thought that statement might not hold true with Miss Donaldson. Mama also told me that she strongly suspected there was no such thing as an electric paddle because anything hooked up to electricity might result in electrocution and that the school board would frown on that. Daddy told me that he did not want to hear me say anything bad about any teacher because they had been to school to learn how to teach, and I was just a kid with very little education. When classes were assigned for fifth grade, I was, indeed, assigned to Miss Sarah Donaldson’s class. I remember looking around and seeing that I was not alone. I had friends in her class. I left school that day thinking that maybe Miss Donaldson wouldn’t be so bad even if I hadn’t seen her smile one time. As it turned out, Miss Donaldson was pretty terrific. I think I learned more under her tutelage than I had in the previous four years combined. Miss Donaldson introduced us to poetry, the real stuff, not the fluff that shows up in basal readers and causes kids to hate poetry. We had to memorize and recite effectively passages from Field, Whitman, and Longfellow. A written book report was not good enough for Miss Donaldson. She made us illustrate our reports. Complaining that we had no artistic talent did not get us anywhere with Miss Donaldson. Every one of us was required to enter the science fair, and if we wanted an "A" in science that six weeks, we had better place in the competition. She even hauled in a television, and let us watch the latest space launch, which I believe was John Glenn orbiting the Earth three times, telling us all the time we were living in a great moment of history. I remember vividly her saying that when she was an old woman, she had a secret yen to sit on the front porch of the Sunshine Rest Home and drink mint juleps and smoke cigars. How we hooted at that, because we knew she was an active Methodist and that she would never drink or smoke. Somewhere along the way that year, Miss Donaldson made me her Jr. Red Cross girl, and I got to go to every classroom in the building once a week and collect money for the Red Cross. Quite a few students accused me of being the "teacher’s pet." Never one to mind being shown favoritism, I wasn’t bothered one bit by the taunts. The one blot on my year in fifth grade was the day Miss Donaldson handed back a paper and said, "Your handwriting is deplorable. You should practice more." I tried to write better, but when report cards came out, to my horror, I had a "C" in handwriting. I fought back tears until I got home and showed Mama the first average grade I had ever made. Mama, who had a beautiful handwriting, said to me, "I told you that your handwriting looked like chicken scratching. You must practice. Practice makes perfect!" So, Mama found an old handwriting book that she had saved, and I practiced hours and hours over the next six weeks with upstrokes, down strokes, circles, spacing, and loops. The next report card showed a "B" in handwriting. While I made A’s in my other subjects, Miss Donaldson never thought I deserved more than a B in handwriting. However, I credit her with getting me on the path that led to the calligraphic skills I picked up in college. No matter how much I learned to like and respect Miss Donaldson, I was scared to death of her. I never wanted to disappoint or anger her. Among my fellow students there was no middle ground with regard to our teacher. Students either liked her, or they didn’t like her. I found that the more immature and less studious folks did not like her, while the majority of the class liked her. Miss Donaldson did not seem to mind being disliked. She was there to teach us, not be best friends with us. She had a clear line we did not cross. She was the teacher. We were her students. Twelve years later, the first year that I taught school, I was assigned the very same classroom that I had spent with Miss Donaldson in fifth grade. Miss Donaldson was stationed directly across the hall serving as assistant principal. I never knew when Miss Donaldson would be listening to me teach by standing outside the door or by listening on the intercom. I would find my voice trembling when I would look up to see she was coming to observe me. In thirty-one years of teaching, no other principal ever made me nervous, but around Miss Donaldson, I became the same little fifth grader in fear of disapproval. My first year of teaching was Miss Donaldson’s last year. She retired, because the following summer, at age fifty, she married Mr. Frank Sneed, a widower with adult children. Most of us thought back then that she was forever doomed to being an old maid. I am glad to report that Miss Donaldson had twenty years of happiness with her husband until cancer claimed her life. I am grateful for having Miss Donaldson for a teacher and mentor because she made me a better person and instilled skills that I employed in my own classroom years later. When trying to come up with enrichment activities for my seventh grade students, I often used some activity I remembered from fifth grade. When facilitating candidates for National Board certification, I found myself telling fellow teachers to utilize skills I had seen Miss Donaldson model because while she was teaching us, I was learning how a good teacher teaches. Miss Donaldson was a master teacher long before we used the term. Today, our educational system needs more teachers like her. ~ By Sarah Carter Brown, Guest Contributor Biographical Sketch: Sarah C. Brown majored in English at Ole Miss and taught at various levels in the Pontotoc Separate School District, attaining National Board certification a few years before retiring in 2005, after teaching for thirty-one years. Her two children are now married and Sarah recently became a grandmother. She supplements her teacher retirement income by working in E.R. Admissions at the local hospital. Apart from her work, she enjoys reading and painting.
Bubba Bodock A Bit Of Humor This is why men don’t write advice columns: Dear Paul: I hope you can help me here. The other day, I set off for work in my Volvo 1800 leaving my husband in the house watching the TV as usual. I hadn't gone more than a mile down the road when my engine conked out and the car shuddered to a halt. I walked back home to get my husband's help. When I got home I couldn't believe my eyes. He was in our bedroom with the neighbor lady. I am 32, my husband is 34, and we have been married for twelve years. When I confronted him, he broke down and admitted that they had been having an affair for the past six months. I told him to stop or I would leave him. He was let go from his job six months ago and he says he has been feeling increasingly depressed and worthless. I love him very much, but ever since I gave him the ultimatum he has become increasingly distant. He won't go to counseling and I'm afraid I can't get through to him anymore. Can you please help? Sincerely, Sheila Dear Sheila: An 1800 stalling after being driven a short distance can be caused by a variety of faults with the engine. Start by checking that there is no debris in the fuel line. If it is clear, check the vacuum lines and hoses on the in- take manifold and also check all grounding wires. If none of these approaches solves the problem, it could be that the fuel pump itself is faulty, causing low delivery pressure to the carburetor float chamber. I hope this helps. Paul
Our Mission Purpose - The Bodock Post It is our desire to provide a monthly newsletter about rural living with photographs of yesterday and today, including timely articles about conservative politics, religion, food, restaurant reviews, gardening, humor, history, and non-fiction columns by folks steeped in our Southern lifestyle. Copyright © 2008 - 2009 The Bodock Post. Return to home page. Open This Issue with MS Word
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April
Showers, popularized by Al Jolson, but best remembered by me as sung by Judy
Garland contains a line that states, "Though April showers may come your
way, they bring the flowers that bloom in May." Through the years, it’s
a tune that has played over and over in my head almost every spring, since
I learned the lyrics. Scarcely does a springtime pass that I don’t also
wonder who first made the April showers/ May flowers connection, ere ‘twas
penned by a songwriter. Well, sure, God deserves the credit for the fundamentals
expressed here, but somewhere along the way a human observed how the two
events are related in our portion of the northern hemisphere.
Have
you ever been fortunate enough to know a teacher who stole a little part
of your heart and left you with memories that you still treasure, memories
you can still envision when you close your eyes tightly and travel back to
your youth? If not, then I would like to share mine with you.
A teacher is a compass that activates the magnets of curiosity,
knowledge, and wisdom in the pupils. ~Ever Garrison
Something
was in the air that day. It might have been Spring Fever but it was more
likely a serious epidemic of "Senioritis". Once the class got underway, John
quietly asked me if he could borrow my book for a second and without question,
I passed my book back. John immediately flung the book, Frisbee style, right
out the window.
I
worried the entire summer before fifth grade that I was going to be in Miss
Sarah Donaldson’s room. I had heard tales of her "electric paddle" and
of her mean spirit since the second grade.
