One day before Thanksgiving we received a box of such things from her. Ail of us gathered round it. Nestled in the corner were the shoes. I didn't know what kind they were at the time. My mother didn't either, come to think of it, nor did my dad, nor any of the boys. They all thought like I did, that those shoes were some my sister had grown tired of.
My mother looked down at my feet coming out through my old shoes, and then leaned over the box and brought out those gift shoes and held them out to me. I put my hands behind me, looked around the family circle, and began to cry softly to myself. It's a wonder none of my brothers laughed at me or called me cry baby.
It's still painful after 30 years to think about it. My mother took me aside and told me she was sorry, but there were no other shoes for me to wear and with winter coming on, I'd simply have to make use of them. My dad patted me but didn't say anything. My favorite brother, Mike, roughed up my hair and told me everything would be all right.
Finally, when I was all alone, I put on my sister's shoes. They were tan colored and had pointy toes and kind of high heels but they felt pretty good. I sat there staring through my tears at them, sobbing softly to myself.
Next day I got up and dressed for school, taking as much time as I could, and leaving to the very last those shoes. I felt my eyes filling up again but fought the tears back. I finally had to get to school, so I took the back way and didn't run into anybody till I was in the school yard. There stood Timmy O'Toole, my only enemy, older and taller than me, and, like me, in Miss Miller's class.
He took one look at my sister's shoes, grabbed my arm, and began to yell, "Evan's wearing girls' shoes! Evan's
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wearing girls' shoes!" Oh, I could have pounded him soft but he was so much bigger and tougher than me! He wouldn't let me go at first. He kept it up till he had a big ring of kids around us. I don't know what I'd have done, but suddenly there was Ol' Man Weber, the principal.
"Come in," he said, "it's time for the tardy bell." I made a dash for the door and got into our room before Timmy could torment me any more.
I sat quietly with my eyes down and my feet pulled up under me, but even this didn't stop him. He kept it up and kept it up. Every time he'd come by my desk, he'd do a little dance and call me Edna and make some silly crack about my sister's shoes.
By midmorning we were talking about the winning of the West, and Miss Miller told us a lot about the pioneers out in Kansas and Colorado and Texas and other places. About this time Ol' Man Weber came into our room and stood just inside the door, listening quietly.
I was like all the other boys before that morning. That is, I didn't like Ol' Man Weber much. He was supposed to be real mean. He had a bad temper. He favored girls.
He stood inside the door of our room. Now none of us knew, excepting maybe Miss Miller, that Ol' Man Weber had once lived on an Oklahoma ranch. Miss Miller turned to him and asked if he would care to join the discussion, and much to our surprise he did. Only instead of telling the usual kind of thing, Ol' Man Weber began talking about a cowboy's life and about Indians, things like that. He even sang a couple of cowboy songs! He went on like that for 40 minutes.
It was nearing noon and about time for us to go home for lunch, when Ol' Man Weber started up my aisle, still speaking. Suddenly he paused near my desk and went silent. I looked up into his face and realized that he was staring down under my desk, gazing at my sister's shoes.
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I could feel my face getting red as I began to move my feet up under me. But before I could ease them up he whispered, "Cowboy oxfords!"
I said, "Sir?"
And again he said, "Cowboy oxfords!" And then in a pleased voice, as the other children strained to see what he was staring at and hear what he was saying, he exclaimed, "Why, Evan, where on earth did you get those cowboy oxfords?"
Well, soon everybody in the room was gathered as near to him and me as they could get, even Miss Miller. And everybody was saying, "Evan's got a genuine pair of cowboy oxfords!" It was easily the happiest day of my life.
Since there wasn't much time left anyway, Mr. Weber told Miss Miller it would be all right, provided Evan was agreeable, to let the boys and girls get a real good look at those cowboy oxfords. Well, everybody including Timmy O'Toole filed past my desk and peered at my beautiful shoes. I felt like a giant but knew from my mother that I should avoid pride, so I sat there trying not to be too bigheaded. Finally, it was lunch time.
I could hardly get outside, for everybody wanted to walk next to me. Then everybody wanted to try'em on, my cowboy oxfords, I mean. I said I'd have to think it over. After all!
That afternoon I asked Mr. Weber what he thought about letting everybody try on my cowboy oxfords, and he thought and thought about it. Finally he said it would be all right to let the boys try them on but certainly not the girls. After all, girls aren't ever to wear cowboy oxfords. It was funny that Mr. Weber thought about it the same way I did.
So I let all the boys in my room try them on, even Timmy O'Toole, though I made him go last. And he was the only one besides me that they fit. He wanted me to
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write my sister and see if she could find a pair for him. I didn't ask her, though. I had the only pair of cowboy oxfords in town, and I really liked it that way.
Paul E. Mawhinney
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Bonehead
As long as I live, I won't forget when I met Alvin C. Hass for the first time in 1991. The other inmate in the prison class didn't use the name ''Alvin Hass" when he introduced usnot even close! He introduced Alvin as "Bonehead." Immediately, I felt uncomfortable with Alvin's nickname. The tall, soft-spoken inmate wouldn't look at me as he shook my hand. Needless to say, "Bonehead" was bald-headed. The hair that he had on the sides went way down past his shoulders. I felt as though I were staring at him and tried not to look. But there was a large (and very intimidating) tattoo on top of his bald head. (Yes! A tattoo on his head!) The tattoo was of HarleyDavidson wings and covered the entire top of his head.
As a teacher, I try to maintain excellent composure during stressful times, and I made it through that first day of class. At the end of the period, "Bonehead" slipped me a note while he was filing out of the classroom. I thought, "Oh no! He's telling me that I'm going to be 'taken out' by his other 'Harley' buddies if I don't give him a good grade or something like that." A little later, I had a chance to read the note. It said, "Teach [he always called me "Teach"], breakfast is an important meal and if you're not in by then you're in big trouble!Bonehead, the Mountain Hippie."
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Bonehead completed a series of six classes with me over many months. He was an excellent student who seldom spoke. However, he handed me a note nearly every day with some type of saying, tidbit, anecdote or other wise advice for life. I looked forward to receiving them and became a little disappointed if by chance he didn't give me one. I still have them all today.
Bonehead and I clicked. Somehow, I knew that each time I opened my mouth to teach, he understood me. He silently soaked up everything I said. We were connected.
At the conclusion of the course, each student received a certificate. Bonehead had completed the course doing excellent work the entire way through and I was excited to give him his certificate.
We were alone when I presented his certificate of completion. I shook his hand and briefly told him what a pleasure it was to have had him in my classes and that I appreciated his hard work, excellent attendance and superior attitude. His response stayed with me and continues to make a deep impression on my life. In that soft voice of his, Bonehead said, "Thank you, Larry. You're the first teacher in my life that ever told me I did anything right."
As I walked away, I was awash with emotion. I could hardly hold back the tears thinking that in all of Bonehead's growing-up years, no one ever told him he had done anything right.
Now, I'm from the "old school." I was raised in a conservative setting and I believe crimi
nals must pay for their wrongdoings and be held accountable. Yet I've asked myself several times, "Could it be, by chance, just by chance, that Bonehead's never hearing 'You did that right' or 'Good job' might have had anything at all to do with why he ended up in prison?"
That moment's experience implanted into my heart
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the desire to make sure I acknowledge, in a positive way, every student that does something "right."
Thanks, Bonehead, for telling me that I, too, did something right.
Larry Terherst
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Footprints on my Heart
Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while and leave footprints on our heart and we are never; ever the same.
Tanya Cuva
On a bitterly cold January day a new student walked into my fifth-grade class for students with learning disabilities, leaving his footprints on my heart. The first time I saw Bobby, he was wearing a tank top and a pair of threadbare jeans, obviously too small, despite the cold weather. One of his shoes was missing a lace, and it flopped up and down when he walked. Even if he had been wearing a decent set of clothes, Bobby wouldn't have looked like a normal child. He had a haunted, neglected, lost look about him that I had never seen before and hope that I never see again.
Not only did Bobby look strange, but his behavior was so bizarre that I was convinced he belonged in a classroom that taught social skills. Bobby thought that a rounded sink in the hallway was a urinal, his normal tone of voice was a yell, he was obsessed with Donald Duck and he never made eye contact with anyone. He blurted out comments continuously during class. Once he proudly
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announced to everyone that the P.E. teacher told him that he smelled bad and had made him put on deodorant.
Not only were his social skills atrocious, but his academic skills were nonexistent. Bobby was 11 years old and he couldn't read or write. He couldn't even write the letters of the alphabet. To say that he didn't fit in among my classroom students was an understatement.
I was sure that Bobby was misplaced in my room. I checked his records and was shocked to learn that his I.Q. was normal. What could account for his bizarre behavior? I talked with the school counselor, who told me that he had met Bobby's mother. He said, "Bobby is a lot closer to normal than she is." I searched the records further and found that Bobby had been placed in foster care for the first three years of his life. After that he was returned to his mother and they had moved to a different town at least once a year. So that was it. Bobby's intelligence was normal and despite his odd behavior, he would remain in my room.
I hate to admit it, but I resented him being in my class. My room was crowded enough and I already had several demanding students. I had never tried to teach someone whose abilities were at such a low level. It was a struggle to even plan lessons for him. The first few weeks he was at school I would wake up to find my stomach in knots, dreading to go to work. There were days when I would drive to school and hope that he wouldn't be there. I took pride in being a good teacher, and I was disgusted with myself for not liking him and not wanting him in my class.
Despite the fact that he drove me crazy, I tried valiantly to treat him like all of the other students. I never allowed anyone to pick on him in my classroom. However, outside of the room, the students made a game out of being mean to him. They were like a pack of wild animals attacking one of their own for being sick or hurt.
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About a month after he started at the school, Bobby came into my room with his shirt torn and his nose bloodied. He had been jumped on by a group of my students. Bobby sat down at his desk and pretended that nothing was wrong. He opened his book and tried to read it as blood and tears mingled and dripped onto the pages. Outraged, I sent Bobby to the nurse and unleashed a verbal fury on the students who had hurt him. I told them that they ought to be ashamed of themselves for not liking him because he was different. I yelled that just because he acted strangely, this was even more reason to treat him kindly. At some point during my verbal assault, I started to listen to my own words and I resolved that I would have to change my thoughts toward him as well.
That incident changed how I felt about Bobby. I finally saw past his bizarre behavior and saw a little boy in desperate need of someone to care about him. I realized that the true test of a teacher was not just teaching academics but meeting the needs of the students. Bobby had extraordinary needs that I had to fill.
I started buying Bobby clothes from the Salvation Army. I knew that the students made fun of him because he only had three shirts. I carefully chose clothing that was in good condition and in style. He was thrilled with the clothes and it improved his self-esteem tremendously. I escorted Bobby to classes whenever he was worried about being beaten up. I spent extra time with him before school working on homework.
It was amazing to see the change in Bobby that resulted from the new clothes and extra attention. He came out of his shell and I found that he really was a likeable child. His behavior improved and he even started making brief eye contact with me. I no longer dreaded going to work. I actually looked forward to seeing him coming down the hallway in the morning. I worried about him when he was
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absent. I noticed that as my attitude toward him changed, so did the behavior of the other students. They stopped picking on him and included him as a part of the group.
One day Bobby brought a note to school that said he would be moving in two days. I was heartbroken. I hadn't managed to get him all of the clothes I wanted to. I went to a store on my break and bought him an outfit. I gave it to him and told him that it was his good-bye present. When he saw the tags on the clothes he said, "I can't ever remember wearing brand-new clothes before."
Some of my students found out that Bobby was moving, and after class several of them asked if they could give him a good-bye party the next day. I said, "Sure," but I thought to myself, "They can't remember to do their homework. There's no way they can organize a party by tomorrow morning." To my surprise they did. The next morning they brought in a cake, streamers, balloons and presents for Bobby. His tormentors had become his friends.
On Bobby's last day of school he walked into my classroom carrying a huge backpack filled with children's books. He enjoyed the party, and, after things had settled down, I asked him what he was doing with all of the books. He said, "The books are for you. I have lots of books so I thought maybe you should have some." I was sure that Bobby didn't have anything of his own at home, certainly not books. How could a child who at one time only had three shirts have lots of books?
As I looked through the books, I found that most of them were library books from various places where he had lived. Some of the books had written in them, "Teacher's personal copy." I knew that the books didn't really belong to Bobby and that he had acquired them through questionable means. But he was giving me all that he had to give. Never before had anyone ever given
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me such a wonderful gift. Except for the clothes on his back, which I had given him, Bobby was giving me all that he owned.
As Bobby left that day he asked me if he could be my pen pal. He walked out of my room with my address, leaving me his books and his footprints forever on my heart.
Laura D.Norton
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4
ON DEATH AND DYING
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there.
I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
1 am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of birds circling in flight.
I am the stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and weep.