by Mike Morris
Keeping it a deep, dark secret that I never told anyone, I had a crush on Sherry. Sherry was a girl. She liked me, and although it was okay for a girl to like boys at that early age, it wasn’t cool for a boy to like girls. During recess, many of the students aggressively hunted me and tracked me sometimes as far as the top of the slide. Their evil intent was to capture me so Sherry could execute the unthinkable – a kiss. These brigands never apprehended me because I was too fast and made many remarkable escapes. Just when they thought they had me trapped at the top of the slide, I would glide down the side pole and get away.
Finally, one day my friend Chip and I ran surveillance on Sherry’s house after school. Somehow, Chip and another girl connived an evil plot, and as I portrayed pandemonium, the conspirators tussled, scuffled, and tangled me up long enough for Sherry to deposit a kiss right on my face. I feigned anger and hit her. That was little boy stupid. She became one of the very first on a list of dames I never told I was sorry.
11
The Making of a Bad Dream
After suffering the kiss on my face, I left town to finish the tail end of second grade in Florida. This experience was short and horrible. After the teacher, Mrs. Boocanon, introduced me to the class, I began walking back to my new desk. A girl whispered, “He’s cute.” That was comforting and I felt myself stand taller. But then a boy made a very negative comment about me, and some kids laughed. I don’t remember what the comment was, but it was the first time I can recall that I was aware of someone disliking me. It was a dreadful feeling that didn’t go away.
To make matters worse, during recess, when I approached people to play, they would ignore me and move away. I was used to being sought and even chased by the whole class and now it seemed no one wanted me around. The next thing I knew, I was alone. Nobody was anywhere in sight. I realized that everyone must have gone back to class, but I didn’t even know how to get back into the building. I began wandering around, looking in class windows, and trying to recognize my new classmates. Suddenly, after I was ready to give up, someone yelled, “There he is!” The students erupted into laughter. Mrs. Boocanon snorted, “What are you doing out there? Get in here! You’re late!”
I tried to explain that I didn’t know how to get into the building, which brought giggles, chuckles, and titters from my lovely new schoolmates. Mrs. Boocanon instructed some little, snooty kid to go out and lead me back into class.
Well, apparently this teacher – this hobgoblin, mutating into a rhinoceros-headed ogre – Mrs. Boocanon – was not finished with her welcome of this new kid named Mo. She very loudly pointed out that I was way behind her magnificent class in math; my stupidity was very inconvenient for her, for her students, for the school, and for the rest of the world. She decided to assign someone to tutor me.
I don’t know what her rationale was for choosing the person she chose to help me. Maybe this little girl had no friends and I could be her first one. After all, I obviously didn’t have any friends. Maybe this would be a turning point in this little girl’s life. It would raise her self-esteem and save her from suffering the life of a failure – an outcast. It was somewhat clear to me that this girl was already in exile. The others had already driven her out, and I was quickly learning how that felt.
Jane tried her best to teach me math and I tried my best to be a very good student and learn everything she could teach. She wasn’t the kind of person I would hang out with, but I felt a little sorry for her, and I appreciated her sincerity. We sort of became pals. There were frustrating moments where she seemed unsure of how to do the math problems, but together, onward we forged.
Sometimes the surest way to learn is to teach someone else. Maybe another rationale for Mrs. Boocanon’s directing this little girl to teach me was to help this one struggling math student learn by teaching another struggling math student. Since all of her other math students were magnificent, Jane and I offered Mrs. Boocanon the perfect opportunity to implement her strategy.
When we were quizzed on the material, I did exactly as Jane had instructed. Mrs. Boocanon approached my desk and for a moment looked over my shoulder. Suddenly, she slammed her hand on my paper and held it immobile while she scrutinized it. “These are all wrong! Every single one! What in the world are you thinking?” As she scolded me, her jowls shook above my head. Crushing my paper, she flung it across the room.
I tried to explain that I was trying to do them right, but raising her snout in an appearance of sniffing the air she cut me off.
“Just one minute!” Aiming her snout in Jane’s direction, she commanded, “Jane, let me see your paper!” The rhino angled in the direction of Jane’s desk. She grabbed Jane’s quiz and stared at it. “Well he did his problems just exactly like she did hers,” she pompously announced to the class. “It’s not his fault.” Then twisting her torso toward Jane like a giant mortar zeroing in on its target, she sucked up all the air in the room and bellowed, “He did them exactly like you showed him! If you didn’t understand, why didn’t you say so?!” After a soundless moment that could easily have been an eternity, Mrs. Boocanon leaned back and howled, “Now there are two of you!”
Oh, man. I felt like I had caught the plague. It was no wonder that students didn’t want to be near this little girl. As tears washed down Jane’s face, Mrs. Boocanon moved back to my desk and hunkered next to me. Abruptly, she transformed. In barbed contrast to her just-completed tirade, Mrs. Boocanon gently, sweetly, soothingly, but with vile condescension, taught me the correct way to solve the problems. And boy, did I learn in a hurry! The rhino relished having crushed a demon – Jane, and saved another lost soul – Mo Mickus.
That is all I remember about my experience with Mrs. Boocanon and her school in Florida. The only reason I remember that is because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t forget it. Over the following summer I drifted down to Key West. A brand-new school had just been built and my parents insisted I check out their third grade.
12
Fish Eyes, Paper Wads, and Paddling
My mom assured me that all the students would be new – just like me. The school was almost completely encircled by water, and when I dropped anchor at my new classroom, what my mom assured me was true didn’t seem to be the case. There existed a mysterious familiarity among them. The teacher had not arrived yet, which I found slightly discomforting. I had never been in a classroom without a teacher as the center of attention and a void seemed to permeate the spotlessly clean, brand-new classroom. Most of the other students appeared very comfortable and seemed to perceive this as a depraved opportunity.
At first, a very small boy with very large fish eyes filled the void. He placed his finger on his eyeball and rotated this instrument of vision in its loose socket. Everyone seemed to love this gross display. Then a paper wad battle broke out and wads of paper began filling the air. I hadn’t seen that kind of behavior before and my suspicion that it wasn’t supposed to be occurring prevented me from joining in the fray.
I supposed that this was some kind of trick and we were being secretly viewed through some hidden window. I was feeling a little smug at this knowledge but slightly left out when three small events that may have been a turning point in my young life took place at almost exactly the same time. First of all, the teacher, who looked slightly like an aged bulldog, walked in and saw the wads of paper abruptly cease flying. Secondly, the last wad of paper concluded its trajectory on the top of my desk. Finally, I instinctively covered the ball of paper, cupping it in my hand.
The teacher’s eyes immediately met mine. She looked down at the paper wad I held and then back up into my eyes. Uh-oh. Surely, she must have known I wasn’t throwing paper. Hadn’t she been watching through the hidden window? I smiled. She smiled back – a coldly pale smile – and began walking toward me. She reached down and cupped my cupped hand. She turned my hand over and grimly asked, “What’s this?”
“It’s a wad of paper that...”
“What were you going to do
with it?” she pressed.
“Nothing. I just caught it when it landed on my...”
“You just caught it when it landed on your desk...”
Whew! Finally, she was seeing the truth.
“And now you are hiding it in your hand?” Her question dropped like a dead weight.
“I wasn’t hiding it. I was going to throw it in the...trash.” My voice sounded shaky.
“Young man, I don’t like liars.”
“But my mom...” I stopped. The way things were going I didn’t see the point in trying to explain that my mom had taught me not to lie.
“Come with me.” She turned, and I rose and followed the bulldog-headed teacher to the front of the room. I heard some whispers about “paddling” coming from the students. I glanced to where the boy who had kicked off the free-for-all had been sitting and saw a giant fish with human legs flopping under his torso, smirking at his friends. I quickly realized the paddling about which my classmates were whispering had nothing to do with a boat.
When we got to the front of the room, a large paddle lay ominously on the teacher’s desk. She picked it up and told me to bend over. I don’t remember the actual paddling, but I remember the decision I felt forced to make as a result of that public humiliation.
The way I figured, if you were publicly punished for something you didn’t do, that’s pitiful. You are a whipping boy and it is humiliating – especially because you were actually innocent. On the other hand, if you were as guilty as everyone else and you were the one who took the punishment for everyone, then you were sort of a hero – an anti-hero – the strong one – a leader. I chose to be as guilty as everyone else. In the future, I would be the leader – the anti-hero. My course was becoming clear.
13
Fishing and Slingshots
The first rule I consciously broke was the “No fishing during recess” rule. My partner in crime was the giant fish with human legs – the boy with the large fish eyes who rotated his eyeball in the socket. He had no sense, so he was exceptionally easy to exploit. Coral rocks were in abundance in Key West, so we stashed bait and tackle under some large coral. Teachers never seemed to be closely supervising us during recess, so we would surreptitiously secure our bait and tackle and endeavor to lure dangerous barracudas and sand sharks into shore. For most of the year, the only thing I hooked was the giant fish with human legs – several times, but finally we caught a sand shark. The other students raised such a ruckus that our fishing expeditions were exposed and the teachers realized they had some naughty children who needed to be more closely supervised. Some time passed before the teachers returned to their more casual style of supervision, and we were once again able to cast our lines.
Two boys who lived next door to me suspected I had some issues and needed some direction. They had an abundance of direction because they were Cub Scouts and their father was the Scout-master. They invited me over to watch their father – the Scout-master – teach them how to make really lovely slingshots, using the inner tubes from car tires. The Scout-master told me he could teach me if I would join the Scouts. The next thing you know, I was a Scout with a uniform, a Cub Scout knife, patches, and everything.
As he promised, he taught me how to make this powerful, deadly slingshot. He didn’t say anything about “powerful or deadly,” but it turned out that my slingshot was appealingly powerful and dreadfully deadly. My first victim was an innocent bird perched high atop a telephone pole. That successful shot was tempered by a culpable awareness that “that was way too easy.” According to my insufficient logic, if it had been more of a challenge I wouldn’t have this yucky feeling inside. I searched my surroundings for a more stimulating aspiration. I spied a crane standing way out in the shallow water behind my home. I was pretty sure that those cranes were endangered and a protected species. But, it was so far out, there was no chance I could actually hit it. I took aim and let fly a marble-sized piece of coral in the direction of the crane. In a second or two, the crane’s neck wobbled and it fell into the water. I froze momentarily, then quickly threw my slingshot into the ocean. Disgracefully, I peeked about a bit to estimate my guilt – guilt based on how many people had witnessed the crime. Nobody was around, so was I innocent?
From the standpoint of a rule or law, I figured I was innocent. I mean, nobody saw me, and I had thrown the evidence into the ocean, and the crane couldn’t say anything. I wasn’t going to confess. However, I felt a little sick, and I was clearly aware that a powerful and deadly weapon should not be readily available for those with weaknesses in their wits, childishness in their character, or cracks in their common sense. I did confide in my older sister, Arcadia, and she tried to make me feel better by telling me a story about how she and one of our Alabama cousins, Jasper would shoot birds, tear off their legs, and then use the tendons to open and close the feet. That didn’t make me feel better. It kind of freaked me out.
14
Dads’ Derby and Little League
The Pinewood Derby was my next Cub Scout project. A block of wood, four wheels, a couple axles, and instructions to have my father help were provided. I didn’t have a clue where to start. I didn’t know anything about cars, and I wasn’t sure what getting my father to help meant. I couldn’t imagine working on something with my father. I didn’t feel like I knew my father that well. But after stalling for a while, and with time running out, I approached my dad with the block of wood, the tires, and the axles. I asked him if he could help me. My dad stopped what he was doing, and we figured out how to assemble the parts. I still had the block of wood, but now it was on wheels.
Over the course of a lifetime, I learned two things about my dad. To him, life was win or lose, and he was a winner. Secondly, if he had an artistic or creative bone in his being, it was hidden so deep out of sight that everyone I knew, who knew him, was sure it didn’t exist. Finishing this car for the derby was totally up to me and my own perverse – or at best – dubious wisdom. I used my Cub Scout knife to whittle a little wood off the edges and then painted my car red and white. “Pretty good!” I thought.
I showed up at my neighbor’s house to ride with them to the site of the derby. I sensed a bit of embarrassment on their part when they saw my car. I don’t remember them saying anything about my car, but when I saw their cars, I couldn’t believe how professional they looked. They were sleek and beautiful. My car looked like a block of wood, but you couldn’t even see or imagine a block of wood in their cars. That moment influenced my opinion on which came first – the chicken or the egg? Which came first – the sleek race car or the block of wood? My race car was just a red and white egg on wheels.
When we arrived at the site, all of the cars were sleek, magnificent, and professional-looking. Mine was the only “ugly duckling.” I wasn’t aware of any other boys making funny looks at my car, but lots of dads definitely showed an assortment of indignant, pained, and sadly sympathetic expressions. Even though I was only seven and a fairly stupid kid, my intuition told me clearly that those cars weren’t made by any Cub Scouts. Those cars were made by a bunch of dads. My car would not be competing against the cars of other boys. It would be competing against the cars of a bunch of grown-up men.
After my car won its first heat, I sensed a release – a release from sympathetic guilt – fill the room. The dads seemed relieved that the ugly duckling had won one and that I had my moment of victory – as short-lived as it might be. Now the real contest could begin. The problem was that I kept winning heat after heat. Anger smoldered, caught fire, and began to glow into open hostility. Every time my ugly duckling crossed the finish line first, snarls and threats electrified the room, bringing dark clouds of an impending storm. Aggression began to assail the shrinking space as the dads pushed closer to the action. Soon, there were only two cars remaining – a beautiful sleek, professional, dad-made car and my ugly duckling.
Desperation permeated the crowd of dads. Except for me and another boy, all the other scouts were off playing s
omewhere. I could sense a collective prayer by that mob of dads. They wanted one thing, and that was for the ugly duckling to lose. Truly, tension tightened terribly as the last start was tallied down. The barrier lifted and the cars started to descend the ramp.
Looking back on it over a half-century later, I wish the ugly duckling had won. On the other hand, at the time I was as relieved as all those dads that I lost. Lurking overhead at that moment was an unidentified monster – a monster that broke into bits the moment the beautiful, sleek, professional, dad-made car crossed the finish line ahead of the ugly duckling. One of those fancy chickens finally beat my egg, and I was happy that lurking monster was gone.
Usually, after something like that, grown-ups try to encourage young people by saying, “Good job!” “Nice effort!” or something similar. But, nobody said a word to me or to the kid who won. All the men just sort of breathed a big sigh of relief and turned away in silence.
My dad was a great baseball player. He probably could have made it as a professional, but at some point in time before I was born, he decided that he had to make a living to support his family. Very few professional baseball players back then made a decent living. I suspect my dad often wondered whether he could have made it as a pro. The great Yankees’ second baseman, Bobby Richardson, was my dad’s batboy at one time. The American Legion coach who coached both claimed my dad had a better chance of making it as a pro than Bobby.