Brian Holte, OWP 1998

The aromas coming from my present schools cafeteria at times take me back to lunchtime at my elementary school, and though I'd like to say that such olfactory memories lift my spirit and pique my appetite, alas, such is not the case, because I did not like hamburger gravy.

Then, as now I presume, meat and potatoes were standard fare in the Midwest where I grew up, and its most common form was gravy and mashed potatoes, which was served frequently, except for the requisite fish sticks on Friday. I loved potatoes (as well as peas and corn), but, much to the chagrin and apparent lack of comprehension of my teacher, I hated gravy and would not eat it.

Now it seems that I must have explained this to someone in the cafeteria, and I think I remember asking once unsuccessfullygovernment food surplus regulations, I suppose for butter instead of gravy while in the serving line (where I also remember watching with amazement at the cooks who often were using the big round sharp meat slicer to cut thin pieces of beef and ham from big shank bones, as well as the perfectly round baloney slices that came from a huge perfect cylinder of meat that for some reason was never for sale at the grocery store; and wondering where in the world they got the melted liquid rich salty yellow butter than filled the stainless steel serving bowl and which was ladled onto our mashed potatoes on days we didnt get to have gravy).

I suppose I must have dumped this good food into the garbage numerous times, until the day that Miss Nieman couldnt take it any longer. She determined to make me stay at my table, with my plate of hamburger gravy floating in its congealing layer of grease atop my mound of spuds, until I finished them, staying past the time of everyone else leaving, past the time of the kitchen closing its serving windows and doors, past recess.

And then . . . I was saved by the simple delicious fact that wemy caring teacher and Ihad to go to afternoon class; and even though I had to bear a few more disapproving words from her, and similar frowns on the faces of the German-American cooks, I was free, hungry but free, and never again confronted about my dislike for potatoes.

But there were other basics too, attending the grade school in a south central Minnesota farming community in the 1960s. Mr. FalkBob Falk as I remember, having learned his first name a few years later, but in no way letting that detract from the respect I had for him, a respect born partially out of the day that he pulled me aside and out of the room during choir practice for the upcoming all-school music concert. A buddy and I had been too loudly mocking and parodying a couple of the songs, to the point where the visiting music teacher had to stop and reprimand us. Being a big kid in sixth grade, and I suppose one of the student leaders (although my recollections of the time do not include any personal evaluations of me as a leader), Mr. Falk must have felt the need and duty and maybe just urge to tell me how it is and enlighten me about things bigger than me but which would soon enough be mine to grapple with. So out of the blue he drops the name of Steve Brown, and asks with an snarl of disdain in his voice, Do you want to be like him!? and Im standing there wondering what in the world he could mean, since Steve Brown was one of the stars of the all the varsity sports teams, he was one of the high schoolers that we sixth graders long to grow into, someone who we watched for as many seconds or minutes we could when we got the chance, to see how he did it, to see how to be more grown up, to be cool. Do you want to be like him? Although Mr. Falk may have said a bunch of other things to us to shape us up so wed quit detracting from the limited rehearsal time, that one rhetorical questionwhich was not rhetorical for meis all I heard, and was what I thought about during the next days, weeks, and months.

So, did he accomplish his purpose? Sure, he impressed upon me that I was acting in a way that he didnt like, and he impressed upon me the hope or challenge or need or importance of looking deeper into things, going beyond the first impression, the everyday accepted facts. did he get me to care more about the concert and practicing? No, but he did get me to shut up, at least long enough for the rehearsal to continue. And come to think of it, he did this all without humiliating or embarrassing me he pulled me aside into a private meeting where other kids werent present, where I didnt have to save face or do any of the sincere lying that can turn a molehill into a mountain. I knew that Mr. Falk had married a few years after my class and I moved on to junior high or high school, partnered up with the new, attractive sixth grade teacher whose photo caught my eye in the paper. And I thought, Good for him, he deserves that, hes a good teacher.

As for Steve Brown? He dropped a another notch or two when his girlfriend, a cheerleader, became pregnanta rather unwise action in a town of four thousand churchgoers although in my private thoughts I wondered what that was like, what it meant, and why it was such a big deal, since he seemed to walk and talk the same as before. Im thinking now that it all has to do with adults trying to preserve the childhood of their children and their neighbors children for as long as possible, knowing from experience that once its gone, its pretty much gone.

Mrs. Duff the librarian turned me off to reading for a long time, The Catcher in the Rye being one of the few if not the only book I really read and enjoyed for almost fifteen years between the incident with her in fourth grade and the discovery of Dashiell Hammett's crime mysteries and Lillian Hellman's political plays and engaging memoirs in my mid-twenties. I recollect Mrs. Duff and Mrs. Epp--possible conspirators to my downfall, one my classroom teacher and the other the librarian whom we visited every week or two--as both different, most significantly because they both had dark, maybe even black hair, in a school and community of mostly blond and more blandish Scandinavians, for whom brown and brunette was common enough, but not the dark, striking black frames of hair (synonym here) that these two had. I remember the shelf in the library, at the far end of the rectangular wall, opposite the checkout counter and small office space, the second or third shelf from the floor, the source of my literary inspiration up to that fatal daythe 920s, holding The G-Men of J. Edgar Hoover and other non-fiction that told, and I suppose likewise glorified, the lives of people and places bigger than me and my town. I was into it, and remember the immediate and satisfying sensation of reading words on a page that produced vivid images in my mind into which I leaped and became the main character, the head G-Man, cracking spy rings, traveling all over the country, using the latest secret weapons and tools and tricks to secure the safety of the President, basking in the knowledge and glory and importance of such significant and mysterious people.

And then one day, standing at my sanctified shelf, another FBI book in hand, already six pages into it, Mrs. Duff announced, er, declared that I couldnt check out more than one 920 book, and that instead I needed to find a book from over on the side shelf, the fiction books. I remember being emotionally shaken, surprised, confused‚ and may have even said something in response. But I complied and went over to the fiction shelves, and may have even feigned interest in actually making a selection from the collection.But what followed my surprise and confusion was defiance, and though passive and without verbal declaration--which today might sound like, "Well that sucks!" --at that point I lost, er, buried my enjoyment of reading for over a decade.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have done one of two things, as I now as a teacher expect and hope students to do if confronted as I was. First, I'd tell the librarian loudly, clearly, and even respectfully why I love the books I'm choosing, how many I've read, how many more I plan to read, and related topics that I plan to move into, even why I'm so into them, which may or may not have anything to do with school. Second, I'd challenge that well-meaning knower and purveyor of stories and knowledge and perspective to give me a book as good as the ones I was choosing, with, Cmon, I bet you can't do it, I bet theres not one book over there that can grab my attention, can make instant, wonderful pictures in my head like these 920s, and let me fantasize a future with me as the leading adult.

Later that year, it was announced in our classroom that Miss Dunham, the elderly quaint school nurse, had suffered a heart attack and was going to be out for an extended period of time. I remember clapping or cheering upon hearing that Miss DuffI had heard incorrectly was gone and would be gone for quite awhile (later, when I heard it was Dunham I felt ashamed, because she was sweet and had always been helpful, but not because I had expressed my contempt for Miss Duff. I wish my teacher had picked up on my feelings about the librarian, had asked "What's up?" and even taken the time to approach me privately in a non-threatening way in order to get to the bottom of this.

Good intentions are what I remember, but did not always experience as a student at St. James Elementary School; I suppose the same is true for a significant number of the students that I now try to teach every year. Herein lies the eternal challenge for me as a teacher to consider, glean from, and apply my own experiences so that my actions toward my students are more than good intentions, but rather are good actions that produce good feelings.