What Women Have Taught Me

Part Three

There are 104 countries which celebrate Mother’s Day; 77 of them (including the U.S. and Mexico) celebrate the day in May. It is a good thing to do, but I have always felt that the day should also include honoring the various women in our lives who have made a significant impact on us. In this two-part series, I want to do exactly that by telling you the stories of six women through prose and verse who were, in effect, my mentors. I honor them, and so many more!

THE TEACHER

It is 1958 and the teacher is just five feet tall and very young. The frames of her glasses are large and dark and they contain very thick lenses. Her short, black hair has severely straightened bangs. She looks like a baby raccoon and appears quite beatable (from the perspective of a wayward, intractable student), even though she carries a long pointed stick for protection. Her classroom is the neatest room on the entire planet. Not a thing is out of place – and there are lots of things: flour and salt maps of the American Revolution, posters of famous American figures, a caged gerbil, an aquarium filled with angel fish, a plethora of climbing vines, prints of Monet’s water lilies, perfectly manicured #2 pencils laid end-to-end on a perfectly ordered teacher’s desk. The blackboard is smudge-less and is virginal in its cleanliness. Unsmilingly, she writes her name on the board: “Miss Law.” The chalk squeaks as if to emphasize the point. “Miss Law” as in “to lay down the…” And that is exactly what this diminutive woman does – reading us the rules right at the outset: “No this, no that! Am I clear?” “Yes, ma’am! Yes, ma’am!” To re-emphasize her point, she pulls a thick, wooden paddle from one of the drawers of her desk. “I will use it if I have to!” she warns. “Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am!” She is Discipline incarnate, holding no truck with late assignments, lame excuses, and surly behavior. Yet, she is fair. And now, decades later, I consider her abilities and conclude that she was the best teacher I have ever had. Sometimes, surprises come in small packages – even if they have to carry a stick for protection. Sadly, she was too good a teacher and the last I ever heard of her she had become a school administrator somewhere.

TO MISS LAW

Controlled sanity stands on tiptoe to make her point:

“My way is the ONLY way!”

For now –

(She must know that we will grow up and out to the world

of chaos);

But now it is 1958 and white, male historians will speak of this time in America with fondness.

Now the only chaos for us is spitballs and pimples;

And hormones (and confusion over what to do with them!)

We recite the Gettysburg Address,

Diagram sentences,

And read Anne Frank.

Confusion lies out there – somewhere

(We know…

So does sanity)

But for now, the law prevails

And there is ONLY the law!

*****

THE LOVER

Everyone lost track of her. But then, she was lost even when she was with us in high school: my love goddess. The first real girlfriend I ever had. The prototype for all the hippies that ever were: bold, iconoclastic, anti-social, revolutionary, independent, living beyond the boundaries of acceptable behavior. And brilliant. Absolutely that! Judy had a photographic mind, tested at “reading” (if you can call it that) 12,000 words a minute with nearly total recall. We saw the movie To Kill a Mockingbird together, she for the second time, me for the first. To this day I don’t like the movie because Judy insisted on saying every line of dialogue one sentence before the actors. She got a perfect “800” on the verbal section of the Scholastic Aptitude Tests. My mother didn’t like her. Photographs of the three of us taken the night of the high school senior prom showed that. Judy never said if she liked my mother. Judy allowed me to drive her car called a “Sunbeam”— an ironic name since Judy herself was mostly a depressive personality. She allowed me to drive it to the Jefferson Memorial at night, even in the midst of winter where we would kiss. By logical extension (since Thomas Jefferson was nominally a Unitarian), Judy allowed me to drive her Sunbeam to the All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Washington, D.C. (where she and her family were members). So you can say that my love goddess was also my spiritual guide. I was seventeen years old and really didn’t know anything about love back then. Or free-thinking. But a guy’s got to start learning about things sometime; 1962 seemed as good a time as any.

TO JUDY

You taught me that a mentor could be a teenage girl in a pink sweater

Who refuses to do things my way;

Who is her own person;

Who is brilliant;

Outspoken;

Hates to wear prom dresses

And loves the existentialist writers

(The more depressing the better.)

You taught me that smart might mean

Cynical,

And not necessarily a good grade point average.

That love might mean

Something more than touch;

That friendship might mean

More than ever seeing each other again;

And that memories live on.

NOTE: Don Beaudreau has written 12 books, the last one, a satiric comedy, is a novel set on Cape Cod, MA. His works are available on AMAZON Books in hard copy and Kindle editions.