Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Remembering a bad day at school many years ago

For my last three years in high school I got a grade of C in English.  Sometime during that period I mentioned that I couldn't understand why I never got a higher grade.  I was told that this teacher would not give a boy a grade above a C; this satisfied me and I didn't worry about it anymore.  During my freshman year I did get A's in English.  It was in this class that something  so odd happened that I continue to wonder about it many, many years later.

The teacher was Miss Bell.  She suddenly stopped her lesson and began to condemn me for something that I supposedly had done.  She never said what it was but the way she blasted me, never stopping until class ended, that it must have been little short of murder.  I asked my friends what it was that I supposedly had done; no one had the least idea.

The worst was yet to come.  The next day in class she started by reminding the class that some member had interrupted the class by doing something terrible.  But, she said, "we are going to forget all about it; I don't even remember who it was that was so bad.:"   Of course, every eye in the class turned to stare at me. I know that probably everyone has been blamed for something he was not guilty of.  It happens more often than being credited for something good that we didn't do.  I am still puzzled at what crime I was supposed to have committed.

(By the way, although I had been out of  the classroom more than three years, I scored near or at the top of the freshman English exam at LSU and had to take only half year of English to get a full year's credit.)                                       

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