A Change Gonna Come

 

 

For the past couple of years I've been writing fiction. Sort of. Much of it is memories. I have two manuscripts under my belt. Working on a third. Below is the first chapter of a historical fiction/middle grade novel tentatively called A Change Gonna Come. It's about being in sixth grade in a Catholic school during the 1967-68 school year. While it IS fiction, it's based on some of my experiences, friends, family, teachers, and enemies. From time to time I'll post bits that might work as stand alone pieces. Here's the opening chapter. I'd love to know what you think. 

Looking for an agent. Just saying. 

Merrillville, Indiana - Tuesday, September 5, 1967

“God, I hate these chokers!” Geno Svoboda tugged at his tie on their walk to Saints Peter and Paul Catholic School. Almost fall, it was still summertime hot.

“I miss vacation already,” said Tom. Black dress shoes shined, white shirts bleached, hair buzzed. This was the freshest they’d look until May 31, their final day of sixth grade. Their shoes were dusty by the time they got to school.

The classroom smelled of the waxy floor coating applied over the summer, chalk, and dusty books. The windows let in a welcomed breeze that smelled of baseball, fort making, and snake catching, now reserved for weekends and vacations.

Sister Rachael Marie was dressed in her nun’s habit, her “penguin costume.” All you could see of Sister were her hands and face. Even her forehead was covered with stiff, white fabric. The nuns wore long black veils, and their habits reached the floor.

She studied her seating chart and looked up at the young faces forming first impressions.

After nodding to Sister Rachael Marie, Tom zeroed in on his name, written on the desktop in neat cursive on a piece of tape: Thomas O’Brien. He looked at the name on the desk in front of his: Mary Malloy.

Tom hoped she was cool, because he’d have to look at the back of her head for the next one hundred seventy school days.

The girls wore white blouses, shiny black shoes, and pleated skirts. Through sixth grade the girls wore beanies, little round cloth caps held in place with bobby pins. 

Sister examined her chart. “Another O’Brien, hmm?” Tom hoped she wouldn’t judge him from his brother Matt’s shenanigans.

“Maria Bartolomeo. I pray you have a better work ethic than your brother, Anthony.”

“Yes, Sister,” she replied.

“You must call me Sister Rachael Marie. No informalities in this classroom.”

“Yes, Sister Rachael Marie,” Maria nodded so hard her beanie almost fell off.

Then she walked in. It had to be Mary. Tom noticed how bright her eyes were in contrast to her dark hair.

Rachael Marie motioned to the empty front desk.

Mary’s beanie was tucked into the waist of her skirt.

“Mary, put your beanie on.”

Mary looked perplexed.

“Mary!” Sister said too loudly. “Beanie. Now!”

“My name is Marilyn,” she whispered. “I thought you were talking to someone else.”

“There is no Marilyn in the Bible. I will have no unchristian names in my classroom.”

“My parents named me Marilyn,” she said, eyebrows scrunching together.

“Children in this room will be called Christian names.” Tom could think of plenty of kids in school who didn’t have Biblical names.

“Now, put your beanie on.”

“Sister, we didn’t have any bobby pins. I just enrolled and…”

“I expect you’ve been raised very informally. In this classroom you will give me my rank.”

“Ma’am?”

“You’ll address me as Sister Rachael Marie at all times.”

“Yes, ma’am. Yes, Sister. Yes, Sister Rachael Marie,” Marilyn-Mary stammered.

“You will wear your beanie every day. Today you’ll buy pins from me. I charge two pennies each.”

“Sister, I don’t…”

“Pay me tomorrow, but you will wear your beanie today.”

Marilyn-Mary’s cheeks flushed. Sister opened her drawer and pulled out a card covered with bobby pins. She pulled two off and walked over to Marilyn-Mary’s desk. They dropped with a tink-tink.

Marilyn-Mary pinned her beanie in place.

Later, Tom watched her reach out to open the lid of her desk. Her arm ended above the elbow. The hand at the end of that short arm had only one tiny finger curving out from the side.

Tom stared. This girl was so pretty, so normal. But her arm gave him the creeps. No matter what was happening in class, he searched for her stump. He didn’t want to see it, but he couldn’t look away.

Around midmorning, textbooks were checked out. Marilyn-Mary’s stump snaked out to hold up her desktop as Sister handed her the heavy American history book. Sister saw the malformed hand, and so did many of their classmates.

“Mary,” Sister said.

After an entire morning of talking, Sister fell silent.

Marilyn-Mary looked up, “Yes, Sister Rachael Marie?”

“I’m sorry,” Sister said, eyes focused directly on Marilyn-Mary’s arm.

Marilyn-Mary’s cheeks flushed; her eyes bright with anger. “Don’t waste your sorry on me, Sister Rachael Marie.”

 

Dear Mr. O

Forgive the tense changes in this piece. I retired from teaching little kids a year ago. Sometimes I still wake up and I'm a little confused about where I am. My tenses are bewildered.

You might remember letters. A pencil-and-paper message, handwritten, with thoughts, memories, stories. Love. Carefully crafted. Written in cursive, folded twice, tucked into an envelope, licked shut, stamped, addressed, return addressed. I received one this week. It was from an old friend. 

 I knew this child a couple years ago. She was in my third-grade class. We spent 7 hours a day together. We played on the recess field. Shared meals. Made each other laugh. We shared our favorite books, family stories. We sat side-by-side during powerful discoveries, asked and answered important questions. After a while (never at the very beginning) we said we loved each other. And it was sincere. 

The life of a teacher must be peculiar to those outside the field. Teachers and students start out essentially as strangers, each of us asking ourselves if we’ll like each other, if this will be a good time, if we’ll laugh. Can we be ourselves? Will there be moments of amazement? Joy? Will there be sadness? Fear? Will we be allowed and encouraged to be who we really are? 

 I asked myself at the beginning of the year (yes, even after 38 years), Am I up to this? Do I have teacher/imposter syndrome? Am I faking it? Is everything going to be OK? 

As we got to know each other, there were all the important times one expects after years in the profession. The Ah-Ha! moments, difficult things to learn and teach, the sometimes excruciating outside world pressing in on our classroom lives, new babies, the deaths of grandparents and beloved pets, getting to know each other in ways that few people can. Knowing which gags will make the class laugh. Understanding how to get everyone’s attention. Figuring out everyone’s line of when to push, when to let go, when to show anger and disappointment, and when – after a while – to say, “I’ve been meaning to tell you all this. I hope you don’t feel uncomfortable. But… 

“I love you. I do. You’re my best friends. Someone has to be in charge here. And that would be me. But I want you to know. I mean it. I love you.” Or something like that. 

 It was more spontaneous than it sounds. It wasn’t rehearsed. I usually said it when we got settled from a transition. Like coming in for recess, just before read aloud, lining up for lunch, or at the end of a particularly difficult day. (Yeah, we had those.) 

There were plenty of years as a young teacher when I didn’t tell the kids how I felt. The emotions were always there. I just wasn’t comfortable enough in my teacher-skin to say it. But after the first time I used “the L word” with my young students, a weight was lifted. It became more natural. It felt right. 

When the kids went on the fourth grade, I often mourned. Quietly. It wasn’t just certain kids. There’s an US that happens with a group of people who get to know each as teachers and learners in a room where you spend hundreds of hours in the same space. You may remember from when you were little. It probably happens in middle and high school. Surely it happens in college seminars. But it’s not quite the same as when you’re little. 

So, when they moved on I mourned. I missed US. Certainly, there was a new group in front of me that I would learn to love. But for a time, there was an uncertainty in many of my former students’ eyes as we passed in the hall or saw each other in the cafeteria. 

There’s the guy who made us laugh and work hard. There is the graybeard who read us stories, let us into his life, read to us from the news and asked our opinions. That man who brought in watermelons for us to eat on hot days, caterpillars for us to watch, forest soil to examine. He prepared us for the ridiculous end of the year tests, sang songs with us, listened as we shared our stories. That old dude who taught us new playground games, math games, chess. The fella (born in the 1950’s, can you believe it?) who had a hard time hiding his tears and never held back his laughter. 

After a while our connection fades. For those new 9-year-olds passing me in the hall or playing kickball with their own class on the recess field, that time in 2nd and 3rd becomes distant. They’re growing up, making new memories that replace many of the old ones. They’re not strangers exactly, but no longer best friends. I might flash the “I love you” sign, but their smiles back become less bright. 

It’s natural. I’ve seen it so many times I can’t remember. My first students would be in their mid-50s now. They may remember my name, but very little else. It’s just the way it is. 

But then every once in a while, a little glimmer reaches through the bills, ads, political BS, and sales circulars in my mailbox. Every so often there is an envelope addressed to me in cursive handwriting (that I taught). And it’s filled with… 

Dear Mr. O… I got to see my new baby cousin for the first time. She is so sweet… We caught 3 snakes and a huge crawdad… My pinky got stung by a bee that I was trying to rescue… I can’t believe we’re going back to school so soon. They say there might be a new kid… I read a good book called Charley Thorn and the Lost City. What are you reading?... 

And every once in a while, it’s signed with perhaps the most important word of all time. 

Love

Just Ordinary Thoughts - Three Angels and a Truck

 

Just Ordinary Thoughts

Once again, restarting the blog. I mean it this time. A lot has been going on.  Retired from teaching little kids after 38 years. I wrote two books. Querying the heck out of the first one. Waiting for edits on the second. Thinking and making notes for the third. In the meantime I have the need to write. My goal is to write something new every week for Ordinary Guy (the name of this blog). But I'll also repost older pieces that haven't seen the light of day for a while. This is the one I started off with on September 25, 2008. A little time capsule. A little fossil preserved in amber.

The other day a cool thing happened. I guess it isn't just ordinary. My wife and some new friends and my son and his sweetie were helping a friend in distress. She was moving out of her estranged husband's place. It was hard. Not the work. The situation. She was incredibly sad. She and her husband had fixed this beautiful place up. It took years of backbreaking work. Yet, as our friend explained, it was all a labor of love.  

It was a big old building. They had to tear it apart before rebuilding. Sweat. Tears. Years. The estranged husband was there while we were organizing, collecting dusty boxes, emptying out closets, getting fire ant bites. He was there sort of creeping around. and playing his symphonic music REALLY loud. We would catch peeks of him lurking.

Our friend was in pain. She took us on a lengthy tour of the place. It was magnificent. The work was brilliant. While there was still a lot to do, her work there was finished. She was not only saying good bye to this home, this project, the years of labor and love she put into it. She was also saying farewell to years of marriage and commitment to a guy who wasn't nice for a long time. There were lots of tears. While the morning became afternoon I became more and more angry with her skulking husband and sadder and sadder for her. It was wretched.

In the early afternoon three guys came from Two-Men-And-A-Truck. To me they were sort of faceless. I'm embarrassed to say it but I was so absorbed in my friend's pain, and my anger at her creeper husband, that I never even looked these men in the eye. While we had sort of organized things and pulled some of the boxes together, these three men did the real work. Dressers, wardrobes, stuffed dusty boxes. I didn't even acknowledge them. These strong young men put their backs into the real labor, while we sort of huddled around our friend. We were doing our job. They were doing theirs.

After the truck was loaded we prepared for the long ride back to her new place. Three cars and the moving truck. One of the young movers said, "We need to circle up." I wasn't sure what he meant. "C'mon, man. Why don't you go get the lady? She needs a circle." I went to get our friend. As I walked up to the door she came out into the sunlight with red-rimmed eyes and wet cheeks. She had just been saying good bye to her dog who was staying behind. The rest of our group were standing in a semi-circle. Waiting. When she came over, we held hands. The Three-Men-And-Truck guy took off his hat. His head was shiny bald. He tucked it under his arm and held hands with one of the other guys. The Three-Men closed their eyes and bowed their heads.  

"God," he said reverently. "Please send down your love on this good woman. She's goin' through some hard times and she needs some of your love right now. Thank you, God, for these good friends who have gathered 'round to give her comfort. Please be sure that she sees some of your kindness and mercy real soon." Long pause. The other Three-Men guys nodded their approval.  

"Thanks," our friend said quietly. "That was beautiful."  

I cried. Some of the others did too. The words were perfect. The sentiments exactly what were needed. The blessing so pure and sweet. Of course these good men had seen the pain and sorrow. They were tired, probably not all that well paid. And yet they gave back to all of us in a way that nothing else could.  

We left that place soon after. It was one of those real times, one of those lessons about human worth and dignity that jumped out at me. When I shared this little story with some friends it occurred to me that there are small important moments that happen all the time. I work with small children. I am married to my best friend and have two wonderful sons to fill my life with joy.  

It was this bright little moment that made me think I should start another blog. This one will be a combination of Just Ordinary Thoughts and stories of a life. It will also contain short stories and bits of fiction that I have written over the years. Since I am a teacher, it will probably contain stories of wonderful children and the lessons they teach me.  

So, here is the start of my story.  I hope that it has some light for you.