Childhood's Parable--Chapter Five

Emile

He knows nothing of routine, fashion, or habit; what he did yesterday has no influence on what he does today. He follows no formula, is influenced by no authority or example, and acts and speaks only from his own judgment. Hence you must never expect of him second-hand speeches or studied manners, but always the faithful expression of his ideas and the conduct which springs from his inclinations.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

Emile

Ostensibly I was a good kid. Never in trouble. I preferred instigating it so successfully that no one could possibly know, much less remember, I was the original source. One of the most pleasurable hours of my life was sitting in a dormitory room of very smart students who were speculating on who it might have been that had written the underground newspaper dubbed the Crap Newsletter. Seemingly all 1,300 students in the college were considered as the possible culprits and near the end of the session Charley said it might have been me and he said it only in jest and no one took his speculation seriously. But it was me.

I didn't develop this particularly seditious characteristic until the second grade. There were five Mikes in my second grade class and most of us were up out of our seats at one of the other Mike's desks making play money, and not doing our seat work. I found it was ordinarily preferable to conduct such unsanctioned business at someone else's desk. As usual, Miss Dogberry (that really was her name) wasn't paying close attention and we had been occupied for some time when the crowd caught her attention. She objected loudly. And at the back of the pack I dropped to all fours and crawled, alligator style, down the row and back to my seat. Everyone else was caught. While the others wrote "I will not misbehave" at the blackboard (and they were black back then) I went unpunished. I found I preferred it that way. Just as I have always found myself increasingly comfortable with hypocrisy.

In third grade I changed the rules in volleyball to our team teacher's chagrin. In fourth grade I diverted our Cub Scout den to stop by the shopping center during our All Troop Hike. In fifth grade I read what I wanted from my lap while keeping my text on the right page on top of the desk. (Song of Roland was my favorite.) In sixth grade I had started the petition to get Bobby Duss on the softball team. And I also single handedly co-opted the entire school boy patrol. Conveniently, Ted, our shortstop and captain of school boy patrol, and Hank, the third baseman and lieutenant were the ones blamed for our dereliction of duty by our principal, Miss Haas, and by then even they thought they actually had been responsible. I suppose we were all in fact irresponsible. I suppose if some little kid had been killed on the way to school that day we would have felt terrible for all having left our posts. But we never really saw any kids we thought really needed helping walking to school anyway. And we had one great time.

What happened began with it snowing that day. And it hadn't snowed in our particular part of the country in over fifty years. It was pretty exciting. And it hadn't started snowing until just before we were supposed to take our patrol spots along the crosswalks to school. It didn't snow all that much . In fact, the only place it was really collecting was on the cars in the Teachers' Parking Lot. But it was collecting there.

And I admit that I was the one who suggested that the entire school boy patrol have a snow ball fight in the Teachers' Parking Lot. Ted responded, if half heartedly, that we had a duty, and, besides, that we might get in trouble if we didn't do it. I mentioned that our principal, Miss Haas, had a de-merit system; that if you had five demerits you were kicked off School Boy Patrol; but that an "infraction" only cost one demerit and none of us had more than one. Nothing could happen to us. Convincing logic.

We had one hell of a snowball fight. If little kids had been run over at the unguarded crosswalks it was because they were hurrying to see the fight. I particularly enjoyed scraping snow off my teacher Mrs. Gross' brand new turquoise 1958 Chevrolet Impala, because I particularly didn't like her. The snowball fight raged on for sometime. It wasn't until near the first bell that Miss Haas was finally apprised of what was going on in her parking lot. Furiously she strode out to meet us. All other students were sent to class. There were too many of us in School Boy Patrol to fit into her office, so she congregated and lectured us in the cafeteria. She lectured us about our sacred responsibility, et. al., and droned on and on. To our credit we didn't snicker (or apologize--we'd have done it again, every time). And she cheated; she changed her own rules; she gave us each three demerits for this serious infraction. And when she asked who had instigated all this, no one pointed at me, nor do I think they even remembered. And since none of us had more than one demerit anyway, no one was kicked off School Boy Patrol. And I'll bet nearly everyone of us remembers that snowball fight from over three decades ago. (And, for the record, I landed a snowball on each of my peers and received no direct hits myself, unless you count the one by my best friend, Mike Garner, who had been fighting with me by my side, but yielded to his own inclination.)