One of My Favorite Teachers at PGHS

Pedricktown kids did not have their own high school.  We were shipped off to that regional high school where a number of communities joined together in educating their children.  High school brought us into contact with our first wave of outsiders.  It wasn’t a bad thing.  

Over the years I have put together a couple of remembrances tied to high school at PGHS.  I went to the old high school I think for one half of a year before we moved to the new high school, thus I remember both buildings.  Here is the first of a couple of tales from the new high school.

In this one tale I don’t think I really changed anyone’s name.  Ms. Powell would be impossible to hide with her southern accent and her stern manner.  

“Mrs. Powell, it was the aliens, I swear.”

Every single day offers us at least one lesson. In the space of a moment we may be learning the real grammar of life in an immense world. On other occasions an intimate conversation could take a turn and suddenly we are absorbing a master class in the nuances of emotional subtext. These lessons are there and we have to opt to listen or not.

In was in the fall of 1973 that I learned one of my life's great lessons. Living takes pluck, stones if you would, and a sense of the absurd. Sometimes when faced with an inevitable judgment in which you will be found wanting, sheer audacity can save the day. If necessity, that great mother had not taught me well, my life might have followed a much more serene and stable course.

The 1973 day in question was a school day, and a wet one at that. Rain was falling steady and sometimes it was blowing. Usually wet days put me in a good mood. I don't know why but I have always loved a day with nice rain. Maybe it is the smell. Maybe it is because I am allergic to anything that is green and grows and the cleansing of the atmosphere left my body in a healthier and inherently more upbeat state. Or maybe a wet school day was when the playing field was mine. I wasn't athletic and there would be no outdoor PE. In a classroom I was competitive although my grades didn't show it. Grades really didn't mean that much to me.

While the day in question was a wet school day, it was far from perfect. It fell during my senior year of high school and in that year I had drawn Ms. Powell as my English teacher. Ms. Powell was southern, sixtyish, austere and demanding. She wore thick rimmed glasses popular a full decade before. The only saving grace of her spectacles was that at least they weren't black horn rims. Her standards were rigorous. Attendance was taken, reported and papers were due when they were due. A day late was a dollar short for Mrs. Powell.

On the day of insight I was caught in a conflict between three competing forces. In addition to the three page paper Mrs. Powell had assigned on a hoary old section of a Dickens's novel, 'Oh Pip, Oh Ms. Haversham….oh etc', I had a history paper due on some Russian Japanese conflict in the early part of the twentieth century. That paper was to be 10 pages long and required footnotes and a bibliography. I am not making this stuff up; it was 10 hard pages on the relatively obscure Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). This for the uniformed was a military conflict wherein a victorious Japan forced Russia to abandon its expansionist policy in the Far East. The war was important because Japan was the first Asian power in modern times to defeat a European power. It was a key element in setting the political mood in Japan that eventually led to its role in the Second World War.

Understand this, the history paper was hard, hard, hard. In 1973 THERE WAS NO GOOGLE!!! I had to work to find stuff on something this obscure and it ate up my time. Balanced against the rest of my life then, something had to give. If I was to do a good job on both papers I would have to give up on the third time demand then facing me. How could I complete both papers and still slip out in the evening to drink beer, smoke dope and sit on the street corner and engage in all the what if-ing all of life's questions with the local gang? I needed this social interaction to make me a well rounded human being. In my little town if you weren't on the street corner, then there wasn't going to be any fun. Hard, hard, hard I tell you and my paper on Dicken's (the creator of our modern image of Christmas) lost out.

On that rainy day there was no doubt my miserable allocation of time would be discovered. I had no uncertainty as to how this how scenario would play out. Going into the third period I would be measured and in the balance and found wanting. I had no plan. Nothing. Nada. Judgment was coming and despite my slightly askew values that had led to this situation I didn't want to face what was bound to be unpleasantness. The hand would write upon the wall.

Ms. Powell had a special way of collecting papers. When she gathered those pearls of prose created by the best and brightest of the dazed and confused generation she would walk up one row of desks and down another until all the papers were in her control. Her hand would extend out as she reached our desks and she would in a clear voice state our names.

The first desk would be reached, the hand palm up and open would extend and in a demanding, not questioning way. She would then state to the occupant of that seat, "Kathy." A diminutive pale feminine hand would place on Ms. Powell's palm five pages in micro fine handwriting of insightful literary analysis. Kathy was good writer and knew how to effectively suck up. A few more steps and then came the calling of the name. "Gary." Soiled crumpled sheets of lined paper were offered up, but the process continued. And then came two more steps and "Jay."

Seconds can take on the feel of hours when you have nothing to fill them with. Thus when the palm pressed a little more forward toward me and the voice again repeated my name but this time with an air of a perturbed question/demand, "Jay?" I had been running through every possible response I had ever used. Vomiting and feigning illness, while an emotionally attractive option, was really not going to work. I didn't look ill and I hadn't vomited on cue since I was a tyke. When the inevitable "Where is you paper" in all its iciness came I had nothing.

Claiming a work conflict with Mrs. Powell did not cut it, this was the 1970s and very few of us had after school obligations or jobs, especially during fall semester. Two papers for a senior in the college preparatory track should have not been a problem given proper planning and appropriate applications of one's self to the work at hand. Saying that the paper was at home on the kitchen table was not going to work either. Tiping my head back and drawing myself up I starred head onto into those cold, irked gray eyes. It was then I just decided to go for it.

The conversation went something like this….

Me. "Mrs. Powell I don't have your paper with me, but I did it. There is a story behind why it is not here and I can explain what happened. As you may remember due to some of my recent peccadilloes Mr. Feldman our fine disciplinary Vice Principal has urged me to show more personal responsibility and school spirit.
Really, he has been quite forceful in communicating those points to me in our many recent meetings."

Mrs. P. "Jay, where is this going?"

Me. "Mrs. Powell I have taken Mr. Feldman's words to heart. I want to be a valued member of our Penns Grove Red Devils community. So as I was walking to class today I tried to act like I had pride in our school. As I was turning into the hallway that leads to your class I noticed one of the four doors to the outside was open. Mrs. Powell rain was blowing in onto the recently cleaned floor. It was making slippery and was going to wreck the recent wax job our fine janitorial staff had recently put down. I knew that other students were in serious danger of personal injury and knew also it would be forever before the janitors got back to waxing the hall again. Thus I decided to take responsibility and do something productive, something right. I put my paper which is, if I might say so myself, one of the better ones I have ever written, did I ever tell you that I really love Dickens, on top of the trash can there near the door. You see I had decided to close the door and I didn't want to make your review of my paper any more difficult than it had to be. I was concerned the ink smearing if my paper got got wet might cause you to have trouble deciphering it. I care for you comfort Mrs. Powell for I see that you like me wear glasses."

Mrs. P. "Again Jay, while I appreciate your concern for my visual health where is this going?"

Me. "Okay, I know what I am going to tell you next is going to be a little hard to believe but you have got to believe me because it is all true. All of it. I swear it. Okay, okay, so when I got to discover what was actually going on with the door I was absolutely flabbergasted. First off when I went over to the door I reached out not looking at the door because I didn't really want to get wet and gave a tug on the door handle. It didn't budge. I had to turn to see what was going on and there he was as real as sin. Mrs. Powell I know this will be hard to believe but there was an honest to God alien holding the door open. He was short and covered with phosphorescent orange fur but he was strong as a Moose. However thinking only of the safety of others I began to pull harder and actually got a little ground on him. But then he yanked on the door again and pulled it ever wider open. And all of a sudden a whole bunch of these soaking wet orange critters came running through the door. There fur was wet and they were shaking like dogs do when they come in from the rain. Clearly the hallway condition was getting worse for the safety of my student comrades. I was beside myself. The one goofy orange goober at the door smiled a huge toothless grin. His mouth must have been two feet wide but it had no teeth. I didn't know what to do, but I did have to do something."

Mrs. P. "So what did you do?"

Me. "Well Mrs. Powell I watched for my opportunity and as fate would have it most of the orange furry dudes had slick soled feet. Having shaken their fur they were slipping and sliding on the wet floor they had created. Quickly I began to grab them by their coarse fur and one by one I forced them backside. Here is where it all ties together for you. I had thought I had gotten them all, I mean it was confusion but I was sure I had got them. Well, truth be told I had gotten all of them but one, and as fate would have it the sole remaining alien was the big toothless guy that had pulled the door open in the first place. As I pushed what I thought was the last one outside I heard a noise behind me I turned around to see the toothless bugger who had caused this commotion running by me toward the door, but and I swear this is the truth he had my paper in his weird tentacle like hands. I yelled for him to stop as he ran for the exit. But I slipped and skidded and as I was looking like Wiley Coyote, he hit the crash bar and headed on out. I yelled I needed the paper and he shouted back to me, and believe this if you can, he knew English. He in a voice that was part howl, part torn bass speaker yelled he was getting even with me because Mrs. Powell was one mean woman and his revenge for having been dispossessed of entry into the school would be forciing me to face what he asserted was an unmerciful you without my paper.

Me. "Mrs. Powell I stood up for you. I said you were kind and merciful, that you cared for your students and that you would never punish me for the evil acts of a bunch of day-glo aliens."

By this point the class had been stone silent for five minutes. No gum was being popped. The usual tap tap tap of the pencil tappers was still. Nobody was moving or adjusting their desks. It was the silence that precedes a car hurtling into the unknown off a cliff. It was the silence heard perhaps in the moments before the floor drops and the doomed man falls victim to hemp and gravity. It was a clarifying silence, cool and astringent, and I swear my testicles were so far into my chest at this point that it is amazing they ever came back down from that defensive move of evolution.

Me. "Mrs. Powell, I swear this is all true. You don't want to prove those evil aliens right do you? I promise the paper, 'cause I am going to have to rewrite it all, will be in your hands tomorrow."

Mrs. Powell by this point had the first couple of papers she had collected clutched to her breasts. For the longest time it was impossible to tell if she was pissed off to the point that me and Mr. Feldman were going to have a much longer bonding period than usual or if I was about to be referred for some serious psychological counseling. It was then I saw her smile ever so slightly and I knew it was going to be okay.

Mrs. Powell. "Fine, tomorrow it is."

When Mrs. Powell moved on to the next desk the routine she followed was repeated, hand outstretched, her voice inquired "Don?" Don looking down at his desk so as not to break up in laughter began, "Mrs. Powell, I was following Jay down the hall and you know he did put them out but no sooner had he left but they ran back in and I was faced with the same situation….." At this point Mrs. Powell just rocked her head back and said "Okay, okay I give up the paper is due tomorrow." She then proceeded to hand back the papers she had collected so far.

So what did I learn? Well I guess it comes down to this, when faced with no hope, no excuse, no shot well you just have to go long, go in your face with confidence and go weird.

Shock and humor may save your hide when all the legal arguments in the world will do nothing but hang your ass out to dry. People love to be amused. So when in doubt, don't doubt, just drive on like Hunter S. Thompson and make the reality that dominates your reality and not theirs. And sometimes it just might work.