Cheating

When a teacher's career spans nearly thirty years, the total number of students has accumulated to about one thousand, well over thirty thousand hours walking among boys and girls of every personality, background, and capacity. I am actually surprised at how many still saturate my memories rather than a number I may have forgotten. Even when some names have become uncertain, their personalities are vivid. As are incidents.


Some are easy and obvious, like the boy who threw two books out the second floor window to see how long they would take to land. He forgot that his digital wrist watch did not count seconds. And the boy who was in a recess fist fight, and, when asked what happened, told the principal that he had three versions from which the principal could choose any one.

And two boys whose names I never knew, who were dragged over to me for violently quarreling. They stubbornly refused to even answer my questions until I switched into street talk. They were so astonished at my using exactly their vernacular that they forgot their anger and left friends.


Some instances are much subtler.


Several decades ago the Pasadena School District Set aside an hour each Wednesday for churches to take children from classrooms to nearby locations for some Bible study. Not every student participated in the program. Those who remained in the classroom were, by dictum, not to be taught anything. 

At the time, five remained in my class. I set up some table games and acvtivities. I often read stories to my classes, but that was tabooed as “luring students away from the Bible thing.”

One of the s students who remained was a girl who eventually graduated from Barnard College. She and a boy were at one of the table games.


The boy at the game with her suddenly growled "You cheated!"


She replied in a level voice, "I don't care if I cheat."


There was a long moment of silence.  Then the boy said softly, "Show me."

Gospel Mission

A whole bunch of years ago our family went monthly to the Gospel Mission with ten or twelve other Presbyterians, bringing fixings for dinner. We would first meet in the chapel leading songs, and Bible passages, and one of us would give a short lesson.

The chapel was always nearly filled. We had revival songs, repeating favorites each time. A few in attendance would make short statements, and our Joe would close with a general prayer. We served the meal, ate dinner with the group, and conversed with them. We felt that we were achieving something for the folks attending. Also, the staff really welcomed us.


But I got a jolt the evening I was the one who presented the message.

The evening had gone well from the beginning: enthusiastic singing, several prayer offerings, good responses to the Scripture reading. My turn came to present the text and its message, and I could feel the warmth among the audience. I decided to make it short and succinct, and so I waded into it.


As I closed, I heard several sotto voce "Amen" murmurs. Delighted, I didn't just stop. I invited them to come to our church on Sunday.


Some among the congregation nodded, murmuring "Amen."


But, from the roughly dozen church brothers and sisters seated at the front, there were several audible gasps. One woman was now looking up at me with her face expressing sheer panic.


I was never asked to present another lesson.

Driving in England

Making the switch from right lane driving to left lane driving seemed delightfully easy when I picked up the rental car at Gatwick. I got us out of the parking lot and onto the highway as comfortably as if I'd always done it. 

And everything went well until we came to the first "y" about a quarter mile from the airport. I made a choice, and in seconds I knew it was the wrong one. Coming out of the "y," we were headed north. 


Winchester Cathedral required a southerly turn.


The divided road had no crossing roads. We had to do something, or we would be in London before long, which was not our destination.


When Muriel said, "There's a restaurant and gas station," I happily peeled off and parked.


I calculated that we were now about twenty miles in the wrong direction. That's not too different from knowing you're on the wrong subway. All you can do is get off.


Instead of asking a petrol attendant, we went into the restaurant. There we met a woman with red hair, a huge smile, and an accent so wonderful I stopped caring that I had erred. I just wanted her to keep talking. She sketched out a map that got us right to the cathedral.

I did better after that, EXCEPT that, every single morning, leaving our B&B, Muriel had to say, "Take the OTHER side, Dear. We're in England."


By Jove! We WERE!!! I knew that...most of the time. Only it didn't help getting us back to our B&B the first afternoon.


All British streets are just paved cow trails. They go where they please. I learned that returning from Winchester Cathedral.


"Just retrace the route you came." Hah!!!


First, we lost the car.  We were not sure of the color and had no idea what the plates said.  At last we found it by looking into several. One had some of our stuff.

We happily drove toward the road back to the B&B. That is, we were happy until we discovered that, during the day, a road repair crew had blocked off the way we had come.  




We knew to stay in the city, but there were no assistance signs, no detour marks, and not a “bobby” west of London.


We began to feel a sense of no progress when we passed the asylum for the insane for the third time. We could have parked and asked. But we decided not there.


Finally, I spotted a foot ruler sized arrow on the ground near the road block. What the bears, I thought. Our B&B is uphill. That little road seems to go uphill, and it's going away from London.

Our guess took us past the only restaurant we'd seen, They opened at six, not a tick sooner, and it was....six! So we ate and had the waitress (also with a delicious accent) tell us that, yes, indeed, we had guessed right this time. We were going in the right direction.

USA, Por Favor

Leaders are assumed to know where they're going. You feel foolish when you discover they don't. You feel worse when you've been the leader.

Crossing the Border

A passport into Mexico was not always necessary for a weekend. I don't know how many people drove across the border every Saturday and Sunday then -- but it was a lot, like a really, really lot.  Sunday afternoon the line to the border through Tijuana was miles. You had time, while in line, to buy piñatas, tacos, and trinkets made in China from the youngsters pounding on your car window.


An alternative was peeling off east and exiting via Tecate, a forty mile detour. Or, as I had discovered, there was an alternate way around the boring border lines themselves.

Tijuana is a large city

Because I was making rather regular trips to Ensenada, I had gotten to know Tijuana's streets fairly well. I could save up to an hour by leaving the line, dodging around past the bus station, and re-entering at a signal light much closer to the border.

river bed near Tecate

One home bound Sunday, late, I picked my special turn and headed at a good clip ninety degrees northward, entered an alley, shot past the Greyhound station, and... made one wrong turn, finding myself in a river bed.

Ensenada (south of Tijuana)

That was bad enough, of course; but it was then I realized that four cars had tailed me.


I hope they got out of Mexico somehow. I realized my mistake and recovered. Those four may have had to go back to that bus station. Or flagged a piñata seller to get proper instructions and gone home with two piñatas.