Carefully Taught

Unlike teachers, school friends can be careless, cruel teachers.

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In the spring of 1941, we moved from Detroit to Colon, Michigan, the Magic Capital of the World. Surveyors used a dictionary and chose the first word they came upon to name the town: colon, a punctuation mark indicating a pause. Our growing family paused there for five years.

As soon as we got to town, Dad piled four of us five kids into his blue truck and drove off to the school. We went up the broad sidewalk toward a brick building, seated on a sturdy foundation of chiseled stone blocks. The three pointed gables at the roofline were repeated in the clock tower that capped the building. Each story was filled with tall windows, which I was soon to learn, required a long wooden pole with a metal hook at the end to open and close the upper sash.

Dad opened one of the large glass double doors, framed in dark wood. In addition to another set of double doors at the opposite end, leading to the playground, there were four doors for each of the combined classrooms tucked into each corner of the cavernous space. I felt suffocated and confused.

“Hurry up, Fay. Stop your gawking,” Dad said, as he led us into Mrs.Wattles’ kindergarten and first grade room in the back corner.

“This is Fay Miller; we just moved here, and she’s ready to start ‘kindeegarden’.”

“How old is she, Mr. Miller?”

“She’ll be five in October.”

“We don’t allow children to start this early, Mr. Miller.”

“Well, Jesus Christ, if that ain’t the damndest thing!” Dad said, as he turned and walked out of the room. Mrs. Wattles’ voice trailed after us. “Bring her back in the fall, Mr. Miller.”

Our next stop was across the way, where Dad settled Barbara into Mrs. Fry’s second grade class. Then he headed toward the front of the building, dropping Mary Lou off in Mrs. Flowers’ fourth and fifth grade room and lastly Joan with the sixth and seventh grade teacher.

Dad and I got in the truck, and he mumbled all the way home about what a hick school this was for not letting me start kindergarten. Even though I felt like it was my fault, I was relieved to wait a little longer so that I could get used to living in a new place.

Kindergarten and First Grade: Mrs. Wattles

September finally came, and once again Dad took us all to school in the back of what my older sisters called the “Blue Racer.” We had long blue racer snakes on the farm, and I guess that’s how they came to name Dad’s truck. They also called him “Snake” behind his back.

When I carried slop to the pen, I would watch the pigs toss the beautiful blue squiggly creatures into the air, more afraid of getting crushed by the huge hairy pink barrels than being bitten by what I assumed were poisonous snakes, even though they weren’t.

I was filled to the brim with pride to be starting school, though not quite five. I wore my new brown oxfords, white anklets, and a hand-me-down dress. Mom tied my hair in rags the night before, something she rarely had time to do, so that I would have Shirley Temple curls to begin the school year.

I liked everything about rag curls: the sound of Mom tearing a rag into long strips, dipping the comb in sugar water and tapping it against the side of the glass, dampening a section of my hair with the comb, wrapping it with a rag, and tying it in a knot.

I have never forgotten my first teacher, partly because of her name. We lived on a chicken farm and knew about wattles, those ugly granular clumps of red flesh that dangled under chickens’ heads. We laughed ourselves silly when anyone said her name.

I sort of knew how to read before starting school and settled easily into the daily routine. Mrs. Wattles reminded me of Mom—plump with short curly hair—which helped. I felt special when she asked my new friend Dickie and me to stay after school and do things like cut out colored shapes that we fitted into matching outlines on a long ribbon of paper.

Mrs. Wattles must have had someone help her thumb-tack the strip of paper to the cork band high above the blackboard. Even higher, the alphabet, in capital and small letters, was a daily reminder to apply effort toward neat penmanship.

Everything was fine in kindergarten, until Mrs. Wattles told the two of us that a shape was missing. Dickie immediately said that I had thrown it out with the scraps. I was unable to speak, due to the habit I had of keeping my mouth shut so that I could avoid Dad’s temper. Prompted by the speed with which Dickie pointed his finger at me, I swallowed a protest, certain I had done no such thing.

When Mom came home from the first parent-teacher conference, she told me that Mrs. Wattles said I finished everything I began. I was surprised, as I was not aware of that trait, though some 80 years later I am more than familiar with that ineffaceable habit. I wanted to hear things like I was smart, a quick learner, and well-behaved.

Mrs. Wattles decided that Dickie and I would represent her classroom in the Christmas program by singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town. She had told us to dress like orphans. When the concert was over, I walked up the aisle of the auditorium toward Mom and my teacher. We all had big smiles on our faces. Dickie and I had put our hearts into the performance, and I knew we had been good.

“You and Dickie did a nice job,” Mom said, as she gave me a hug.

“Yes, you were really cute,” said Mrs. Wattles. “You picked a good costume.”

“Oh,” I said. “That was my older sister Joan’s coat.” The look on her face took the smile off mine.

“Let’s go, Mom”, I said.

I hoped that the Christmas party I was going to in a couple of days would end up better. Another new friend, Helen Wondergem, had invited me to her Sunday school teacher’s home. Helen went to the Methodist Church on the other side of town; however, her teacher lived across the street from the First Church of God where Mom and we kids went, so it was easy to get to the right house.

I walked up to the door, knocked, and the lady who opened the door said, ‘I don’t believe you are in my Sunday School Class.”

“No, I’m not. I go to the church across the street. Helen said I could come to your party.” I looked beyond her and saw kids playing near a huge Christmas tree covered with lights, dangling ornaments, icicles, and tinsel. My eyes bugged out at all the packages under the tree.

The lady continued looking at me; I could tell something was wrong. Finally, she said, “Come in, put your boots in the corner, and give me your coat and hat.” I did as she asked.

“What is your name and where do you live?”

“Fay Miller, and I live that way,” I said, pointing in the direction of our farm.

Just then another lady walked into the living room. The two of them whispered for a moment before inviting me to join the other children. After playing games, the ladies told the story of the birth of baby Jesus, before taking us into the dining room. We sat at a long table and ate cake, decorated with red and green frosting, and ice cream.

Back in the living room, the ladies handed a present to each of us. All were wrapped the same: blue paper covered with snowflakes, tied with a white ribbon. They asked us to open the packages carefully, so that they could use the paper again.

I could feel a book underneath the paper and looked forward to seeing the pictures and stories inside. Unlike the other books, mine had no pictures, only lots of words. I hurried home and told Mom about my disappointing book while trying not to cry.

She stopped what she was doing, took me to the bay window seat in the dining room, and put her arm around me. She began reading a magical story, while I created my own pictures. When she finished, I was filled with joy, knowing there were many more adventures to be had with this book.

Despite the song that Dickie and I sang, Mom had warned us kids there was no Santa Claus. She told us that so that we wouldn’t be disappointed when there were no presents under the tree. Even though I trusted Mom, I found it hard to believe her when all the kids had taken

turns standing in front of the class excitedly talking about the gifts that Santa was going to bring them.

Dad wouldn’t comment on what Santy might bring or whether there would be a tree. On Christmas Eve, he slipped out to see if he could find a marked-down evergreen and came back with a free one. We put two strings of lights with fat colored bulbs on it and a package of tinsel. We also hung Dad’s long work stockings on the mantel, knowing they would be filled with oranges and nuts.

When we got up in the morning, we sat on the living room floor, cracked the shells with a silver metal nut cracker and dug out the pieces with matching sharp-pointed picks. Hickory and almonds were the easiest to crack, walnuts and pecans a bit trickier, and Brazil nuts or “nigger toes” the hardest.

I grew up hearing Dad use words like “nigger” to talk about people that were different than us. It began when we lived in Detroit. I had been told to never leave the yard, because “niggers” would get me. I am not sure I had ever seen a person with dark skin, so I didn’t connect the nut with a black person. Even though I disliked the meanness of our father’s words, they were woven into the fabric of my childhood.

In between the serious business of cracking nuts, we would lick our fingers from the juicy oranges that smelled like some faraway place.

First grade was tough. We had to learn to tell time, the directions, and our right hand from our left. I knew I wasn’t stupid, yet when it was my turn to stand in front of the class, I couldn’t identify the time on the face of the paper clock, the direction the teacher was pointing, or which hand she was using.

Dad and I were driving somewhere when I told him I couldn’t learn to tell time or the directions. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Look. We are driving north. To my left is west, to the right is east, and behind us is south. Get it?” There was no way I was going to spill the fact that I couldn’t tell my left hand from my right.

I gave up expecting help from Mrs. Wattles or Dad, as their impatience only generated failure and shame. Though I still have trouble with directions, I learned a few years ago that I may have a form of agnosia, which is the inability to process sensory information. It is often associated with traumatic brain injury, something that might have occurred when my younger sister Phyllis hit me over the head with a wooden croquet mallet while we were living in Detroit.

Mrs. Wattles also had no patience for a quiet boy whose wooden seat was attached to the back of mine. That is, whenever he showed up for school. His thick black hair hung over his sad, lightly colored face, and he smelled of kerosene. Worst thing: he couldn’t learn to read.

The first person at the head of a row would begin reading in our Dick and Jane book, and we would work our way around the room. I felt sorry for him and couldn’t stand it when it was his turn to read. I twisted slightly in my seat and whispered the words to him. We both got yelled at. I don’t know which of us was the most humiliated.

I did enjoy it when Mrs. Wattles played the piano and we sang along with her, mostly songs about winning the war. Her husband was a soldier.

Second and Third Grades: Mrs. Fry

Dickie two-timed me in second grade when a girl with blond hair moved to town. That’s when I became more interested in Donald, a boy who also had blond hair. Dickie and I had

played hard at recess. We climbed the monkey bars, whirled around the maypole, delighted by the sound of the chains hitting metal, bounced up and down on the long wooden teeter- totter, spun around on the flat-disked merry-go-round, with its curved metal hand holds, and raced about the school yard. Wearing a dress didn’t stop me from doing anything the boys could do.

My feelings toward Dickie softened in third grade when Mrs. Fry made him stand at the side of the classroom with his arms stretched out for what seemed like forever. I could see the pain and humiliation on his face. I think he was punished for whispering.

Mrs. Fry used the same reading method: each kid took a turn going around the room. I couldn’t wait for the slow pokes, and I would read ahead. Every once in a while Mrs. Fry would catch me and bawl me out in front of the class. Everyone stared at me, and I wanted to hide underneath the desk.

I was fascinated with the inane stories about this perfect family, Mother, Father, Dick, Jane, Sally, and their pets Spot and Puff. I would tell Dad these stories while he was milking the cows, a job he put off most nights until Mom reminded him that the cows would suffer if he didn’t relieve them. I once asked him a question about the story I had told him and realized he wasn’t listening. I was crushed to realize he was only interested in my company to get him through this unwanted job.

I needed more than the Dick and Jane readers, and I got a library card as soon as I could. I would go across the bridge, digging deep for courage to walk above the waters that poured angrily over Palmer Dam and rushed beneath my feet. I would continue down the few blocks of Main Street, past the theater and Curly’s Bar, to the gas station with a flying red horse.

Just around the corner was my beloved library building, constructed of gold-orange bricks. The gable, perched over the wooden doors, and the smiling half-moon windows invited me up the steps and into the scent of freshly polished floors and the heavenly smell of books. I checked out as many volumes as I was allowed and ran back across the bridge.

I read all the books in the children’s library over and over, especially Wanda Gag’s Millions of Cats. I began travelling the world in my imagination, never dreaming that I would one day actually go to such places as Holland and China.

Mom also suggested I ask Mrs. Fry if I could bring home Children’s Activity magazines. My fear of asking was overcome by the faint possibility that she might give me permission. Much to my surprise, Mrs. Fry talked to Mrs. Wattles, and they both walked into a closet between their rooms. I never imagined that I would see shelves stacked with magazines.

Thus began a lending program: I would take a few home and get more when I returned them. The teachers made it clear that I was never to write in the magazines, so I filled in the puzzles in my head. I felt like I was the luckiest kid in the school. I especially loved reading the Little Brown Bear stories.

Mrs. Fry’s generosity extended to giving her son’s outgrown clothing to our little brother Del. The first time she asked me to stay after school, she went through the bag of clothes, holding up each one and telling me about it. My shoes felt like they were stuck to the floor with Dubble Bubble gum, while my mind raced out the door.

I was happy that our baby brother would have nice things to wear, especially since he didn’t have any older brothers to give him hand-me-downs. I also knew that if the townspeople didn’t give us clothing, we wouldn’t have anything to wear. I just wished I didn’t have to be the one to take the clothes home.

I hurried to the house, dumped the bag on the living room floor, and headed to the barnyard. I called my horse Freckles to the white wooden fence and jumped on her bare back. We rode toward the pasture, as if we were chased by fire. I suspected that without a bridle to guide her, she would likely scrape my leg on a fence post at one of the jogs in the lane. Freckles did leave bloody scratches down my right leg.

My humiliation over the clothes was nothing compared to the time Dad attacked the principal Mr. Jaffee, the day before I started third grade. Some of us kids had gone with Dad to buy our school books. After parking the truck on the street, we walked down some steps into a long dim hallway lined with tables covered with textbooks.

Dad had made it clear that once he bought a book, it was to be handed down to all his kids. Mr. Jaffee, a slight balding man who wore glasses, told Dad that some of the books had been revised and he would have to replace them. Dad reached across the table, grabbed him, and jerked him up on his toes.

“You sonsabitch. I already bought those goddamn books and I’m not buying any new ones, you money-grabbing Jew. I’m not buying the new books That’s final.”

Everyone turned their heads in the direction of the ruckus, started making noises, and scrambled about. I backed toward the door, slunk out, and hid in the cab of the truck. I was sure the sheriff would come and take Dad to jail and Mr. Jaffee to the hospital. I disappeared into a blank space and came out of it when Dad slammed the door of the truck, after parking it near the front door.

We carried the books into the house and divvied them up. I took my pile out to the black curved-dash sleigh that sat forlornly under a tree in the side yard. After brushing off the seat, I settled in to thumb my way through the pages of the hard-covered texts and the soft workbooks. I was glad when our dog Lassie jumped up and settled onto the floorboard of the sleigh. I kicked off my shoes, peeled back my socks, and rubbed my bare feet in her long soft hair.

Except for going inside to pee and get a drink of lemonade, I spent the afternoon dreaming about the subjects we would study: math, history, spelling, science, and English. I could even look forward to getting back into Dad’s truck the following day to take our books and supplies to school.

About a week before buying the books, Dad had said, “Tady, want to go with me to Mrs. Brast’s Five and Ten and get school supplies?” I liked it when he called me by his special nickname, something he rarely did.

I did, and I didn’t. It would be fun to look at all the pretty things; it wouldn’t be fun to listen to Dad’s talking.

We walked into the store. Dad said, “Lo, Mrs. Brast.” She was wearing a navy dress with a white ruffled collar; tortoise shell combs pinned her long dark hair to the back of her head. Mrs. Brast always stationed herself at the front of the store to keep an eagle eye on the penny candy counter and the glass case next to it that held expensive things like blue cobalt bottles of Evening in Paris, Soir de Paris, that cost 25 cents.

We went straight to the wall on the left side of the store where school supplies were neatly stacked on tables, above which Mrs. Brast had tacked a list of the required supplies for each grade. In addition to a certain number of packs of paper and so many pencils, our supplies were to include crayons, blunt scissors, and a ruler. The bigger kids also had to have a square bottle of dark blue India ink and a quill pen.

We didn’t buy paste, as we all got a white dollop, doled out on a flat wooden stick, from a large glass jar, as the teacher went around the room. I couldn’t stand it when kids licked the thick paste that smelled like a hint of mint and something disgusting.

Everyone had to have a wooden cigar box that fit into the slot under their desk top to keep the smaller stuff in. We got our boxes, covered with curious pictures and words, from Dad. The fragrance of tobacco lingered for most of the school year.

Dad tallied up the packs of paper we would need and made two trips to the cash register, leaving me to count out the yellow pencils with pointy erasers. When I got to the cash register, he said, “Did you count them twice? I ‘haint’ paying for anything we don’t need.” When Dad pronounced “hate” in this way, I knew he was getting worked up.

“Nope,” I said, and counted them again out loud.

We went back to figure out what else we needed, while Mrs. Brast began making a column of figures on a pad of paper. After she finished adding up the total, she carefully packed everything in a cardboard box.

Meantime, I had made a beeline to the back of the store to avoid being around Dad when he settled up. I wanted to be as far away from him as I could when he started complaining about how much money he had to spend on us kids. It would also give me some time to gaze longingly at the tiny dollhouse furniture that was placed in small areas sectioned off by clear glass.

“Well, what are ya gonna take me for, Mrs. Brast?”

When Dad heard how much the bill was, he said, “I need to be a goddamn banker to live in this town.” He laughed and added, “It’s a good thing I know Mr. Hill, the banker. I have a contract to deliver my triple-A eggs to the officers’ club at Fort Custer. Nothing but the best for them. But the goddamn government only gives me a check at the end of each month, so the banker underwrites my operation. Couldn’t make it otherwise. I have to have special feed made for my leghorns. Pedigreed cockerels, shipped by airplane from Corvallis, Oregon. You can bet they cost plenty, too.”

“I’m sure it costs a lot, Mr. Miller, to operate your farm and raise a family.”

She looked him over, as she spoke, starting with his worn brown fedora and working her way down his khaki work clothes to his shoes, caked with farmyard dirt.

“Damn right, it does.”

Dad pulled out his equally worn brown leather wallet and handed Mrs. Brast a bill. It was probably ten dollars, a week’s wages.

“We are all having a hard time, what with the Depression and now the war.”

I figured it was time to leave and hurried to the front of the store, hoping no one would notice my red face. I also hoped Dad would let me buy some penny candy. Just then he said, “Add half a pound of chocolate covered peanuts to the bill.”

Mrs. Brast filled a small stiff white paper bag with a silver scoop of clusters and set it on the scales. She took Dad’s money, rang up the sale on the cash register, and put the bag of candy on top of the supplies.

“Thank you, Mr. Miller,” she said, as we walked out the door and across the sidewalk. Dad stopped at the gutter to spit some tobacco juice and hawk out his cud before we got into the truck. He settled the box between us, opened the bag, and offered me a chocolate. We ate most of the candy before we drove home.

The salty crunch of the peanuts, mixed with the soft sweet melting chocolate began to fade and guilt began to erode the pleasant interlude. There would be little to share with Mom and the other kids. It wasn’t because there was a war going on; Dad had a habit of coming home with a few cashews or chocolates in the bottom of a bag and passing them out to whoever happened to be around.

Shortly before the beginning of fourth grade, Mom told us the war had ended. We ran downtown and joined the crowd that was gathering around the flagpole in front of the school. Someone gave a speech, and the high school band played music. I still see a lusty tuba floating near the flag pole, when I think back to that happy time.

I had contributed to the war effort by collecting tin foil and cans for scrap metal drives and gathering milkweed pods to fill life jackets. And, I loudly sang “The Caissons Go Rolling

Along,” while Mrs. Wattles played the piano. I felt I had personally helped to win the war, even though I never got to buy war bonds. Children who had the money could buy a weekly ten-cent stamp that they pasted into a booklet. When it was full, they turned it in for a war bond.

Fourth Grade: Mrs. Flowers

I loved fourth grade and Mrs. Flowers. I was a whiz at learning the multiplication and division tables and most always won the contest for walking around the room with a book on my head. That meant beating the fifth graders with whom we shared the room.

I got head lice that winter, and had to stay home from school for a few days while mom put some raw stinking kerosene on my hair. When I went back to school, the kids clustered around, asking me questions about why I smelled so awful and what it was like to have cooties. I couldn’t say a word. I was glad Mrs. Flowers told everyone to take their seats and start their school work.

Our new baby sister Jessica was born in the spring. Soon after, Mom was called to Kansas to be with her sick mother. She took the two littlest kids with her. During the few weeks they were gone, oldest sisters Joan and Mary Lou grabbed the opportunity to run away, each for a different reason. Mary Lou loved school and resented being kept home to do farm work; Joan didn’t mind the heavy work and wanted to quit school.

When the sheriff found them, he drove up to our house in his black rumble seat car and shined a bright light into our upstairs communal bedroom. Dad opened a window, put his foot on the ledge, and listened to what the law officer had to say.

“Your girls and two boys were holed up in the hotel, and we smoked them out with tear gas.”

“Lock them up and throw the key away.”

Dad went downstairs to continue his conversation with the sheriff, leaving us to be swallowed up by the dark. I was stunned by Dad’s words and I felt as if someone had reached down my throat and was pulling sobs from my gut. I wanted Mom to come home so she could get my sisters out of jail and comfort me. I slipped into my familiar blank space.

A judge placed the girls in a foster care home. They were allowed to come home a few weeks before the end of the school year. A couple of days later, I got up to go to school and discovered we were moving to Coldwater.

I was still borrowing magazines and begged to be allowed to return them to the school. Mom said there was no time and to leave them on the back steps. I couldn’t see how anyone was going to know that the magazines were supposed to be taken back to school. When I think of our fast exit, I sometimes wonder what happened to the magazines. I always feel the sting of breaching the borrowing agreement.

By Fay L. Loomis

From: United States

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