Still Pondering One of Life's Unanswered Questions

It was the first day of 5^th grade and the venerable Miss Thompson, bless her dear heart, had us all excited. “This will be a year of discovery!” she announced with great fanfare.  “If you take a pound of nails and a pound of feathers and drop them out of this window, which will hit the ground first?”

Immediately we said, “The nails!”  But then, “Wait, she said a pound of feathers.  A pound of feathers will be a lot bigger than a pound of nails.  Maybe they will hit the ground at same time, maybe not.”

As the class enthusiastically debated the question, Miss Thompson called for quiet.  “As I said, this will be a year of discovery and that will be just one of the many exciting experiments we will conduct this year.” 

It was a great first day of school.   We couldn’t wait to run home and tell our parents about all of the amazing truths we would discover in the 5^th grade.  The problem was, it never happened.  We never learned about those feathers and nails.  We didn’t conduct any exciting experiments.  The 5^th grade proved to be tedious, laborious, and boring.  Some of the parents were saying Miss Thompson was too old to be teaching.  It was time for her to step down.  And that is exactly what she did, well sort of. . .

The day after school ended in May, the aged Miss Thompson, bless her dear heart, graduated to that great classroom in the sky.  Then we all felt terrible about all of those things we had said about her.  Those same parents who said she was too old were now full of sympathy.  “It’s no wonder she couldn’t do much,” they said.  “She was sick, very sick.  We just didn’t know.”  

The 6^th grade was a lot better and as the school year came to a close, we prepared for our 6^th grade graduation, which was a really big deal in our little town.  We practiced for weeks, marching into the storied old auditorium with its sloping floor and old wooden seats with the decorative metal frames.  Our graduation song was Rogers and Hammerstein’s “Climb Every Mountain.” 

On graduation day with the hot auditorium packed with parents dressed in their Sunday finest and little brothers and sisters anxious for it to end, we marched in our caps and gowns and sang our theme song with gusto.  Then Mr. Gilbert, our crotchety old principal who had apparently appointed himself to be the keynote speaker, stood before the packed assembly with his best suit, narrow tie and wingtip shoes, while everyone used their programs to fan for air.

It had been old Mr. Gilbert who had marched us into that same auditorium in the 2^nd grade to soberly tell us that John Glenn was about to burn up in space (he didn’t) and in the 4^th grade to somberly announce that President Kennedy had been shot and killed (he had).  But on this day he arduously invoked the memory of Miss Thompson, our dearly departed 5^th grade teacher, bless her dear heart.  He dramatically intoned that we were her last class, the final students to hear her voice.  Directing his attention to the fanning parents he caustically stated that she had many more years of teaching left undone.  There were many more lessons she should have taught and many more students she should have guided.  But the terrible stress she was under (he paused to let that sink in) certainly hastened her celestial commencement. 

Having thoroughly scolded the parents, he then directed his harangue at us—the 6^th grade graduates.  Thinking he was Abraham Lincoln he intoned, “You must be dedicated to that great task remaining before you.  You must give increased devotion to that cause for which she gave her last full measure of devotion.  You must climb every mountain and ford every stream, follow every rainbow until you find your dream.  Miss Thompson’s legacy is dependent on you!”  We rose to our feet in animated applause, grateful that the jeremiad was finally over. 

I have heard many graduation speeches since then, most of the words long forgotten.  But I often think about Mr. Gilbert’s brusque graduation address and have wondered how in the world I could climb every mountain if Miss Thompson never answered the question, “If you took a pound of nails and a pound of feathers . . .” Bless her dear heart!

                                                               

Old Man Clemmons

Old Man Clemmons was feared by every child in town. The stories of his screeching screams and bizarre behavior were scarier than ghost stories, because we all knew they were true.

I was one of the few children who had actually encountered Mr. Clemmons, who lived next door to my grandmother. One afternoon we were playing baseball in her back yard when the ball landed in Mr. Clemmons’ flower bed. I was elected to go and retrieve the ball. I should have been concerned when all of the other children took cover in the shrubbery beside my grandmother’s house. I had just stepped into the flower bed when I heard the high-pitched scream. “Get out of my yard!”

He was standing on the front porch, his face red with anger, his words dripping with venomous rage. He was a short man with a square face and wire-framed glasses. Forgetting about the baseball, I ran away as fast as I could. Mr. Clemmons must have seen the other children hiding in the shrubbery because the last thing I heard behind me was a wailing scream, “All of you kids! Leave me alone!”

Out of breath and grateful that we had all survived, the neighborhood children regrouped at my house. It was then that one of the Chunn boys revealed the deep, dark secret that none of us wanted to hear. “You’re lucky,” he told me. “That old guy is a madman. At least he screamed and ran you off, because he has been known to capture kids and hold them prisoner.”

We were all terrified at this revelation. Finally, someone had the courage to ask the question that we feared would be answered, “What does he do with them?”

“He has a laboratory in his cellar,” the Chunn boy told us. “We think he runs experiments on kids. One thing I do know is that whenever a kid has been captured, you never hear from him again.”

A few weeks later I was at my grandmother’s house when, in the middle of the night, I was awakened by a siren and the rotating red light that was flashing through the room. I looked out the window and saw an ambulance and a police car at Mr. Clemmons’ house. I raised the window and heard a terrifying scream. I found my grandmother on the front porch talking to some neighbors who had gathered in the yard. I heard someone say they were giving him morphine to calm him down. “You know he has a steel plate in his head,” somebody said.

I kept my distance from the Clemmons’ house. But one day when I was older, my grandmother asked me to do the unthinkable. “Mr. Clemmons needs somebody to mow his yard,” she said. He would not allow a power mower. I had to use a rusty old push mower, and it took me half a day to complete the job. When I was finished he walked out of the house and, not saying a word, took a wallet out of his pocket that was covered with rubber bands. With trembling hands he pulled out three, $1 bills. Not a thank you or job well done — just three, measly dollars for a half-day of hard labor.

I mowed his yard for a few years and then found a decent job when I started high school. As graduation neared, everyone was talking about Vietnam. Some of our classmates had been killed, others injured. One day a visitor came to school and talked to us about what it means to risk your life in the service of your country. He told us about a man who lived in our town, a decorated war veteran, he said. “This man was gassed and critically injured by shrapnel in the First World War. A steel plate was placed in his head, but not a day goes by that he does not suffer. He is often in intense pain. He can’t stand any noise, not even the sound of a power mower. He will suffer for the rest of his life because of his injuries. But you and I are free because of him. He is a genuine hero. We should all be grateful for his sacrifice.” I looked for the Chunn boy but couldn’t find him. Then I looked at myself and felt ashamed.

Thank you Mr. Clemmons for the great sacrifice you gave for our country. As we approach Memorial Day, let us not only remember those who died, but those whose lives were traumatically and irrevocably changed because of war. We will be forever grateful.