Mr. Ellison was my 5th grade teacher who liked us so much, he took all of us with him when he decided to teach 6th grade. His classroom was lined with cubicles - one for each student that we could decorate any way we wanted. I draped with a beaded curtain, and I've hung beaded curtains in every domicile I've occupied since.
As a class, our collective passion was kickball. And I sucked at it. I was the cliche of childhood tragedy...last one picked...kids fighting over who would suffer the indignity of having me on their team...the fast, athletic boys playing around me.
One day, I played exceptionally badly and it cost us the game. That was the final straw. When we returned from recess, and before "Mr. E." came back, I was surrounded by everyone, yelling at me, calling me names, and telling me what a loser I was. I was sobbing and trying to get away, but they grabbed my arm, pulling me back into the center of their insults.
The thing about Mr. E. was that he was the coolest, friendliest, funnest teacher in the school. EVERYONE wanted to be in his class, and we were the envy of the school, especially when he kept us another year. But that man had a wicked temper that, when ignited, put the fear of God into all of us. Seriously, I honestly think that, were he teaching today, he'd be reprimanded or fired. That man could yell and pound the desk so loudly it shook our eardrums and made our ears ring for hours afterward.
When he walked into the classroom and saw me surrounded by throngs of 5th-graders, spitting as they launched invective after invective toward me, his anger ignited.
He pulled me out of the group and took me outside the classroom. He very gently told me to wait there and not to return until he got me. Then we went back in, closed the door, and the screaming and pounding started. I was mortified, but I was also moved by his compassion. Fortunately, everyone made an effort to be nicer to me from that time on, because no matter how ugly Mr. E. got, his students loved him and, miraculously, they listened to him as well.
A few weeks later, I was in my usual position on the kickball field: back left. The kicker lauched a cannonball straight up in the air, coming right toward me. Instead, however, the ball landed right in a huge oak tree in left field. I stood under it, and I watched it travel like a pinball between the branched. I held my arms out. And I caught it. And I was the class hero.
Well, until I screwed up the next day at recess.
Nonetheless, it was a brilliant moment.
Here's what was so cool about Mr. E. On Fridays, we'd stop whatever we were doing to watch "Happy Days" on TV. Mr. E. had a ritual. Five minutes before the show, he'd eat a Smoothie, a chocoloate-covered marshmallow cup. And as soon as he opened up, we'd sing "It's Happy Smoothie Time, It's Happy Smoothie Time, Oh what a great time, It's Happy Smoothie Time."
We had some politically incorrect songs we'd lauch into whenever the mood struck us"
My country 'tis of thee
Sweet land of Germany
My name is Shwartz
I love sweet saur kraut
It makes my ears pop out
From every mountain shout,
"Hotsi totsi I'm a Nazi!
Oops....
Mr. E. decided to declare one Friday in spring "Game Day," where we could bring our favorite board game and play it all day long. No homework. No lectures. Just games. I got an Operation game for my birthday and waited two weeks to open it until Game Day. I was so frickin' excited!Game Day arrived, and I proudly displayed my Operation Game, which was THE shit among grade-school kids, even more than Mousetrap or Battleship. Suddenly, I was the most popular girl in the class. Everyone wanted to play my Operation game. I claimed a spot on the floor, removed the shrink wrap, and beamed as I set it up. It was beautiful.
I barely had time to think before the boot belonging to Laura Hammond landed squarely on my beloved game, my key to popularity once and for all. Laura, the snotty, popular girl, looked down at me and said, "I was going to the bathroom. Why'd you put the game there? I had nowhere else to walk!" Laura had brought an Operation game too.
I was, understandably, devastated. I should have kicked the daylights out of her; instead, I said, "It's OK. Accidents happen." And I wound up playing Old Maid with the unpopular kids the rest of the day.
This past Christmas, my boyfriend bought me an Operation Game for Christmas. I've only played it once so far, and I totally stink at it. But that's one of the sweetest things anyone's ever done for me.
I bet Laura doesn't have one now!
OB
