TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 28

[Tobie Shapiro]

October 13, 20000000006


Dear People,

	The Family Packers have come once and will be here today, 
too.  Their service is packing for a move, except the furniture which 
the movers will take care of, and unpacking when you get where you're 
going.  I could cry thinking of the impossible labour they are saving 
me.  It's a mom and daughter operation.  They are both soft spoken 
and cheerful, and both have shocks of grey and white hair.  They've 
packed the kitchen, and I forgot to tell them to leave out a spreader 
(for Meyshe's tuna fish lunch) and my favourite cleaver.  So I'm 
using what I can, which will be packed today when they come.  I spent 
hours and hours yesterday in my room going through papers and 
discarding, boxing, sorting.  What a lot of details living creates. 
I envision myself walking through life with a growing cloud of papers 
swirling behind me.  When it gets big enough to knock me over and 
suffocate me, then my time is up.

	In other news, my sister in law wrote to me and asked if I 
could somehow refrain from bringing the cats over to my mother's 
house, even if they live in the basement only (which is the 
arrangement).  She is allergic to cats and the allergens, even if 
they're only in the basement, will permeate the house.  I couldn't 
think of a way to solve the problem, except giving the cats away or 
having them put down.  I can't bring myself to do that.  They're my 
children, too.  So I've got another reason to be on the verge of 
tears all the time.  Sometimes it's impossible to do the right thing.

	Listen here.



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How Miss Baxter's Sleeve Brushed My Face

	The kindergarten attached to Rock Creek Forest Elementary 
School was held in the basement of a nearby church.  The presiding 
kindergarten teacher was Miss Baxter, a largish woman with red 
bristly hair and the meanest expression a five or six year old could 
imagine.  She was stern.  She was abrupt.  She had none of the 
qualities associated with kindly effusive, affectionate kindergarten 
teachers.  I don't remember Miss Baxter reading to us, and I don't 
remember her encouraging us about anything.  I do remember her 
disciplining us, though.  She was famous for discipline.  When a 
child didn't lie down for a nap, she grabbed the child by some 
appendage or other and dragged him or her kicking and screaming to 
the mat.  When little Linda was not listening, she berated Linda 
soundly and made fun of her in front of all the other children.  And 
if anyone was foolish enough to defy Miss Baxter, she was not averse 
to physical roughing up:  a shove, a slap, a good shaking.

	Why do people like that decide to teach kindergarten?  If you 
could choose a more frustrating age to teach togetherness, the 
alphabet and social niceties to children, then it would be junior 
high school when the damage of not being taught these things has 
already been done, and they are at the natural age of rebellion and 
defiance.  Overturn the Queen!  Off with the King's head!

	All the kids in kindergarten knew Miss Baxter's temperament. 
We knew what would set her off and that there was no such thing as 
teacher's pet.  No amount of apples, shiny, candied, dipped in honey, 
or signed by the President would curry favour with the old witch. 
Old, I don't know.  She may have been in her forties or fifties at 
the time.  But a witch?  We had ample evidence.  Everyone hated her 
and was afraid of her.  To the parents, however, she was smarmy and 
sweet.  You could bake cookies out of her.  She'd smile and chat, 
ingratiate herself, sound upbeat and personable.  What a great gal. 
But we knew what a hypocrite was.  That was our major lesson in 
kindergarten.  Maybe the alphabet would have to wait.  Social 
niceties, ditto.

	One day, Miss Baxter set up easels for painting.  They were 
all over the room, standing like capital As on the dark brown 
speckled linoleum tiles.  We were each placed in front of an easel, 
given three brushes, a few cups of colourful paint, and told to paint 
a portrait of someone, anyone in the classroom.  This was difficult 
stuff for a five or six year old.  I set my sights on Miss Baxter.  A 
nice portrait of her was owed the whole class.  So I painted a huge 
white face with a bush of red hair standing out at all angles, huge 
eyes behind black rimmed glasses, and a whole lot of very sharp 
teeth.  Miss Baxter walked around the room commenting and asking 
questions of the little artists.  When she got to me, she asked me 
who it was, and I said, delighted with my efforts, "It's you, Miss 
Baxter!  It's you!"   So I should have given her a red face, but when 
I'd been looking at her during the execution of the portrait, it was 
still quite white.  She became very angry and she raised her right 
arm and swung around to slap me flat across the face with her open 
hand.  I immediately burst into tears, and stuck my tongue out at 
her.  That's when she took a fistful of my hair and yanked me, my 
tongue still out, into the corner where I had to stand, sobbing, 
until it was time for nap.  By the time school was over that day, I'd 
stopped weeping and was calm, almost as if I'd forgotten about the 
incident, but when I came down the street with Susie Marshall and saw 
my mother in the doorway waiting for me, I started to cry again. 
Susie yelled to my mother, "Tobie got in trouble today!  Tobie got 
her hair pulled today!" in a taunting sing song.

	My mother believed my story about what happened, probably 
because I was filled with guilt over the excellent errant portrait. 
It's hard for grown ups to believe their little children in matters 
like this.  I don't know why.  My mother went to the principal for a 
meeting.  As my mother tells the story, when she got to the 
principal's office, Miss Baxter was in on the meeting.  Now, how 
could one be blunt?  Miss Baxter's story was that her sleeve must 
have brushed my face, and the principal believed that.  Miss Baxter 
was full of smiles and assurances.  Who wouldn't believe her?

	But my mother believed me, and called other parents who 
verified the story and told their own stories, too.  She went back to 
the principal armed with more evidence.  My mother removed me from 
the kindergarten.  I just didn't go to school for the rest of the 
year.  At the end of the year, the head of the PTA called to tell her 
that Miss Baxter had been transferred to a different school, possibly 
one where slugging a child in the face was not just acceptable, but 
exemplary.

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-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net