My love for Mr. R

Everyone remembers the favorite teacher, not a teacher’s pet but the one who really saw who you were and who you wanted to be. I was gleefully in love with my 3^rd and 4^th grade teacher Mr. R.  I knew I would not be able to marry him as he was already married but I loved him like you love your first Tiger Beat icon…BTW Donny Osmond.  He had arrived new to our school the same year I did.  I was still in shock from Mrs. Parks from my other closed down Catholic school.  I had never had a male teacher and I was going to melt into the classroom and as before, stay out of the way.

Mr. R was beautiful.  He was perfect for third graders, kind, patient, nice voice, and artistic.  He also was dropped up to school by his wife (darn, I can’t marry him but I wanted to)in my very most favorite car to this day…a light blue Volkswagen beetle, the kind with the metal emblem diagonally on the back. I loved him and I loved his car. 

We both arrived as “newbies” that year and the rest of the class had been there since kindergarten.  He had this great idea on day one, to call me out to the front of the class.  For those of you who have read my other blogs, being in front of the class almost always meant you were in trouble, big trouble, and here comes the ruler.  I did get the ruler once, in second grade but my guardian angel kept telling me; ”Don’t be stupid and keep you hand out there, drop your hand before the ruler hits it.” So I kept dropping my outwaiting hand, unlike Phillip who quietly and bravely took his lumps.  Mrs. Parks would get mad and frustrated as a poor batter…a swing and a miss. Whoosh.

Mr. R was only trying to introduce me to the class but I burst into tears because the only thing worse than getting called to the front of the class was getting called to the front of the class…UNJUSTIFIED.  I didn’t talk out of turn. Not anything.  He almost cried himself, not understanding anything.  Rough start.  Soon I was only a member of the I love Mr. R club.  In my class alone, girls would stare as myself at Mr. R.  It was also the first time I had a positive teacher student relationship.  My grades soared up. He really liked each of his students and that gift is irreplaceable.

One time, we were drawing a still life pumpkin set up in the front of the class.  I was I my own glorious world pressing great amounts of orange color in a large paper filled circle on my one allotted piece of paper.  I walked over to show him and he was coloring also, with shading, immediately upon seeing his version,  my drawing wasn’t good enough.  I remember not stopping to show him and instead I went back to my desk, put a large black “X” on it and turned over the one piece of paper given to hide it.  He came by, picked up the paper, and he asked me why I had crossed it out.  I forgot what I said but I remember this; As adults do not show off your talent within the same creative space as children who are in the joyous world of decisive creativity.  If we see your version, we immediately abandon our statement and become adults before we are children.

Other than that, I was on a permanent date, in my mind with my teacher.  I would sit there, head tilted, huge teeth sticking out, stringy hair, dreaming.  This was the same year of the pleather jumper. What a turnaround from second grade incarceration.  This year, at this new school, we also had an annual little Catholic festival of set up tents and horseback riding.  I saw horses in the movies but I have never seen one up close, too impractical.  All the previous week, I told my friends that I was going to get on a “horse” not a “pony” when the festival was up.  The talk however, was on the “fish pond.”  Who cares, I can do that anytime at home.  No their “fish pond” was a tall curtain that you swung a fishing line over and then they tied a small brown bag.  Inside the brown bag was a small toy.  A toy not on my birthday or Christmas?? This IS the school for me, no ruler, no diabolical teacher in fact this one actually liked us and a festival with toys. Ooohh and Mr R was going to be at the festival.  I went to the festival and after begging and watching and standing in line to wait for my turn,  I was allowed to ride the "horse."  The kindly man made sure it was the "horse,"which was only the one there next to the tiny “ponies.” This horse was half asleep, led by a real "cowboy," who led the horse and walked around the small pen.  Mr. R saw me get on the “horse” I was so  tall on that horse quiet because all I could do was grin.  I can’t tell you how this memory branded on my memory.  It was dusk; the weather was warm,  I was on this tall, gentle horse.  Mr. R was watching me.  My whole life was in front of me.   It was my “peace” of acceptance and possibilities.

Later that year, Mr. R. went over to one of my classmate’s house to go ice skating with him and his family at an ice skating rink.  Mr. R loved hockey.  I was absolutely floored.  What? This nice teacher came OVER TO YOUR HOUSE.  The little salesperson in me emerged with the reasoning of a Supreme Court judge.  I walked up to him during recess.  “I heard you went over with Tommy’s family to go ice skating, how come you won’t come over to my house?”  I pressed, I held up my end on his debates in subsequent recesses.  I guess he was a friend of Tommy’s  family but I wouldn’t let go of this one.  I told him we could go ice skating, behind my house was a shallow pond where all the neighborhood kids went ice skating upon arriving home from school.  He was puzzled, I was not.  My parents would NEVER pay for ice skating and luckily we lived next to a free pond. But I sold the idea like the Brooklyn Bridge, relentless every recess.  “C’mon, not fair you went with Tommy and not me and the ice is solid and safe to skate on.”  It probably sounded strange, some pond behind a woods?  He had never heard of it.  What?  You never heard of Polliwog Pond?  Everybody knows Polliwog Pond, little did I know it was only known to our immediate neighborhood miles from school. Finally I wore him down, he said “yes.”  My best friend didn’t believe it.  “Oh no, he told me he was going to come over and ice skate....he said he would."

On the agreed upon day, when the ice froze our Polliwog Pond I came home, RUNNING  from the bus stop and told my mom my teacher was coming over to ice skate.  She didn’t believe me.  I’ll never forget waiting to look out for him out of the front bay window of our ranch home.  And there he was driving up in his beautiful light blue Volkswagen beetle.  I was breathless and I was awaiting his arrival in my leggings.  My mother didn’t believe him when he rang the doorbell he was better than Donny Osmond himself.  I told my mother, see I told you so, my friend Jean, also in my class, was going to be there too.  We walked together, Mr R and I, to the frozen pond.  To get to Polliwog Pond, you  walked through a shallow part of the woods, snow quiet on the ground, my molded boots, my double bladed ice skates in hand, it was my third grade version of the thrill of walking down the aisle…just as good in my eyes.  I told him it would just be a short walk and everybody would be there.  We went over to the pond and everyone was already skating.  He couldn’t believe it.  Here in the field after the woods, buried like a grove of hobbits, was the quiet little frozen pond for all the kids who couldn’t afford to pay for an ice skating rink.  He put on his snazzy hockey skates and I put on my embarrassing double blade skates.  I told him I was able to skate with single blades and I was still waiting on that request.  Other than that it was like skating on clouds.  You had to weave in and out of the captured frozen cattails and neighborhood kids but I’ll never forget it.  Norman Rockwell would have wanted to paint such a picture.  The next day at school I had “crushed” the largest sell of my life and for the first time I knew what it was like to want something, go after it, and actually get it.

 

 

Mr. R had a permanent fan.  Freud talks to us about young girls going through a stage of wanting to marry their father as a normal part of development.  I never went through that with my father BUT Mr. R was that father figure helping me to happily go through that “healthy “ part of development.  I didn’t even feel the Catholic bonds of limitations.  The next year I was lucky enough to have him as our teacher once again.  This year I remember the canned good  drive.  Catholic schools run a canned good drive.  This is the part where schools are, once again, squeezing families to go into their cupboards to give them the one or two cans of some tired, weird vegetable nobody wants.  Well , this year, something extra special was going to happen to me, almost as good as horseback riding and ice skating in front of Mr. R…I always felt on top of the world in these little moments of childhood memories.  This year, Mr. R decided to run a classroom contest, for 3 days, to see who could bring in the most canned goods.  The prize was to be determined.  I was going to win that prize, even if the prize was a rock because it would be from Mr. R.  I closed the deal on the ice skating, this would be another win.  Usually, I would have 2 cans to give to the school during these drives.  This year, with the contest, I wasn’t going to take any chances. 

I would come home after school and run home to change from my uniform.  Next I would borrow, the red wagon from the family down the street, just had to ring their bell and ask them.  Sure, they said, just bring it back when you are done with it.  We had a neighborhood like that.  Good little Catholic soldier, I have the nerve to walk up to the front door of each house and ask the homeowner for some canned goods for the drive to help “feed the poor people.” Catholics were charmed, the other neighbors were in disbelief.  When you are participating in any Catholic event to “Help the poor” you get to have  freedoms normally not allowed.  Here I was knocking on doors and ringing doorbells of neighbors I hadn’t known, hadn’t seen since the last treat of treating extravaganza.  I had the nerve to ask them for canned good "for the poor."  Kindly neighborhood moms, preparing supper would give me one or two cans, cake mixes, SpaghettiOs, tomato sauce, Campbell’s’ Soup.  This one house I remember, this gentleman was so touched, he gave me a whole bag of canned goods…Jackpot!!  I don’t know if he felt sorry for me, or though it beneath me to ask therefore let me give you enough cans so you can go home.  Oh no, I wasn’t stopping, I was on an errand not really for God like I was supposed to but for Mr. R and the prize he would give me.  First day, was good.  I would go home with two full grocery bags full of colorful mixed canned goods.  I would carry them in the basement, sort them by color and food type and carefully count them using one to one number correspondence.  I had 42 for my first day’s haul.  Then, the next morning, I would carry the two bags of canned good to the bus stop and hold them on the bus ride. I was a fisherman who had caught the "big" fish holding up my prize for all to see.  I was noticed because nobody else had 42 cans, I mean you can only press these Catholic families so much and most kids weren't into the contest.  After morning prayers, we would do the count down.  I had 2 large grocery bags, of canned goods now to complete the latter part of their journey from red wagon, to the bus stop on the school bus ride, carried by me in the school line, one on each arm.  Mr. R asked how many canned goods I had in the bags I told him 42.  He believed me on my word but he would have double checked, I had counted them twice.  Next he went and asked Tommy, who had one small bag and Tommy lied and told him he also had 42, not physically possible.  To my astonishment Mr. R also believed him on his word.  Was this the end?  Not while that wagon still worked and I would drag that red wagon around the neighborhood again and again to beat him.  I had two more days. 

Day two, undeterred and still having my eye on the prize I would grab my trusty borrowed red stead and went out. .  Again, I went from door to door, asking people to “give to the poor.” It was raining and my mom said "No" but I won with the appeal of “it’s for the poor people.” The “poor people” are people who we never actually met.  The closest I ever came to a “poor person” was to look at the Maryknoll magazine pictures of the destitute, shoeless, dirty children holding a bowl.  Catholics will drain your last dollar all in the name of the “poor people.”  You did without and wore the same pants, now floodwaters, all in the name of giving the little extra we had to those “poor people”  instead of saving for something you wanted in the Sears catalog.  Well, I’m sorry but at $5 for your birthday and exactly $10 to spend on Christmas, we weren’t doing much better.  If you had spent your lousy eighty five cents weekly allowance (boy did you work for it too) on a candy bar bought at the drugstore on the way home from church you could easily feel guilty if you didn’t put the whole allowance in the paper box distributed in school.   If not guilt guilt guilt., you selfish,chocolate eating Catholic.  Now give even more money, c’mon I know you found some money in the couch, on the street, hand it over.

Wagon in tow, I had to march and do my duty to win this contest.  I made my rounds and remembered to stop by the house of that man who gave me all those groceries the first time.  He told me;  “Why are you coming back, weren’t the groceries I gave you enough?  “Yes” I replied, “That’s why I’m here again.”  Childhood logic.  I told the man that I had brought them to school and we have this contest I’m trying to win and Tommy cheated and told a lie to the teacher about his how many cans he really had blah blah blah.  This time he gave me another bag, I remember it had a bottle of ketchup in it. Who in their right mind would give away ketchup?  Usually it was unwanted items; we would show each other during the morning school bus ride.  Day two, I had 44 cans.  HA HA, let’s go Tommy, you were at lead having as many cans as I did because you couldn’t carry more. I saw your bag at recess and it was tiny small, no way you would have as many cans as I did.   I had come to find out through the grapevine that he was secretly, not under out little noses, combining his cans with 2 other boys and calling them all his own.  Shame!  That must be a large violation, some cardinal sin, and then again the next day, lying about it…to Mr. R!  I was more determined than ever, not caring that my idol, who clearly knew from the volume or lack of,  the fact that Tommy was giving him an outright lie, announced in front of the entire class.  I was starting to draw attention as our little estimating math heads could easily see he didn’t have the volume to call his lot  of 46 cans. His lie put him ahead by 2 cans.  I would have to approach Mr. R at recess and plead my case.  Mr. R told me it was none of my business.  I think the whole exercise was one of true persistence I would need in my adult life.

Day three, wagon at the ready, I’m going to continue to be a serious contender in the game.  On the way to school, classmates would ask me why I would keep bringing large bags of canned goods to school.  Geez haven’t you heard about the contest?  You can win a prize.  Mr. R was going to buy me a prize, a toy I can have that is not for my birthday or Christmas, are you kidding?  This is like my salary in a matter of speaking.  Day three, I had again 40 something cans.  Kids were raising their hand to say the count was unfair. I would bring in 2 bags daily and Tommy, the liar,  would only bring one.  On the third day, I had my day in court and the interrogation unfolded.  “Wait a minute,” questioned Mr. R, “Are these cans all yours because I heard you were collecting them from 2 other boys.”  Mind you the number was still believed, realistic volume of bags or not. Tommy was a cool liar for himself but he didn’t have the nerve to lie for 2 other Catholic boys.  “So then; “ Mr. R persisted, “This can tally is not just for you, we have to spilt them 3 ways.”  I WON!  I won by a landslide after Mr. R made the contest fair by dividing Solomon’s baby.  I didn’t even care what the prize was, I stayed with my determination and pushed harder through the walls created by that fat liar.

I remember saying that I didn’t need a prize, just him “owing me” a small favor was the prize.  One day, I finally picked out the prize.  I wanted a kickball.  We used the colorful plastic grocery store balls for kick ball at recess.  They were easy to kick and they flew in the air when you kicked them.  Kickball was a glorious game we handpicked our own teams, everyone played every single recess.  Yes, a kickball was something I did not have and wished I had and Mr. R would buy me my first one. Glorious!!  I think that they cost somewhere around a dollar.  I remember him asking me was that all I wanted.  Yes, I said. It was gold, in my book, a present to show off every day to my friends and be able to share it with them.   He didn’t know that something more extravagant would cause waves at home, stay under the radar.  The very next day, he came up to me with this vinyl kickball that had pastel colors and rows of little white squares on it. I loved it the moment I saw it.  I finally owned a kickball and Mr. R picked it out for me. More than the gift, was the attention I got from owning such a proprietary piece of teacher memorabilia and the warm feeling you get when you are the recipient of a kind loving act.

 

 

To all those teachers who went the extra step to “see” a child who only wants to please.  These glorious years with Mr. R were filled with lifeboat memories which would  feed my soul for the years to some.  The following year Mr. R went to another school.   I was to face challenges of my own.  Having to babysit my newborn nephew from a teenage sister.  I was so happy to be an aunt, but I remember the stares I got when I told everyone  of my babysitting weekend.  Every weekend, all weekend, in the pathetic apartment with the alcoholic husband on leave.  I never knew why it was a family obligation to throw me there and the amount of times friend’s parents chastised me for buffering a teenage pregnancy.  Those Mr. R memories would be like memories of when I felt special; I felt I could accomplish huge triumph if I set my mind to it.  I dedicate this to all teachers who are loyal to the happiness of their classroom children,  In looking back I did get those glorious 2 years with Mr. R and I would not get another such teacher until my senior year in high school. 

Teachers can work to try and please relentless parents not treating their child well enough, union strongholds, and lately after the Sandy Hill tragedy in Connecticut, they risk their very lives by simply walking into the job.  Being in the wrong place at the wrong time should not cost you your life.  We did lose some special teachers in Sandy Hill.  I stare at their pictures wondering if they were somebody’s Mr. R.  These loving persons who took a few little extra steps to become somebody’s lifelong happy memory.