The carpet is finally coming off upstairs. Lots of banging and scraping going on. Teddy is just staying downstairs with me; doesn't want to have anything to do with all that scary stuff.
Also, I got(overpriced) hotel reservations for graduation weekend in Ann Arbor next spring. Yay!
The next topic for my Inner Circle writing group is Promises (based on the Readers Write column for The Sun).
I've written a light childhood story, pretty simple, without trauma, which I will include. The 1963 picture featured of myself and my brother was taken at Disneyland and features the hat that plays a big part in the story.
I'm thinking of expanding this piece into a Promises triptych. Should I write about Promises that I have made? Promises made to me? I want to feature an early David Baily lyric:
Everybody
Thinks tomorrow
Is a promise
That they deserve
Not sure of the title "A Reckless Promise"?
"If your answer is correct, I'll eat your hat!, my six grade math teacher declared in frustration. I had questioned a problem that he had chalked on the board. I did it a different way and came up with a different answer. He kept telling me I was wrong but I held my ground. Generally, I didn't call attention to myself. Especially in the sixth grade where I certainly judged myself wanting in many areas. But I was good at math and I was pretty sure I was right. I did not give up and persisted, questioning his method.
"Really?", I thought, "He'll eat his hat?" But my math teacher didn't elaborate and moved on with the lesson.
I went home and thought about that math problem. I worked it and reworked it. I was still right. I showed the problem to my dad, the engineer. He agreed with my solution.
"He said he would eat my hat if I was right, do you think he meant it? You think I can really get him to do it? " I asked my father.
My father laughed, "I don't know but you might get pretty close. Maybe he'll take a bite." This surprised me because our house was run on the 'The teacher is right and you are wrong' principle.
I pondered if I was willing to risk the humiliation if I truly was wrong. I consulted a few other people and everybody came up with my answer. The only thing left to do was to select the hat for him to eat. I picked out a purple felt number from Disneyland. It came with my name embroidered in white thread across the brim and a two foot long shocking pink silky feather sticking straight up. I had carefully kept in on a high shelf away from my younger brother and sister. I loved to run my hand down the soft vanes of the feather.
The next day, I carefully stowed the hat in a brown paper bag, stapling the top. I wasn't really sure if I would go through with this. I wanted to keep my options open. But word leaked out in the morning about my purple Disneyland hat with the big feather. The class members all remembered the teacher's promise. Nobody, however, was interested in my math solution.
We attended a sixth grade program where the class moved from teacher to teacher. Math was close to the center of the day and the class members were pumped. As soon as the math teacher walked in, he was bombarded with comments about the hat. Everyone looked to me. I again drew my solution on the board. He saw that I was correct. With a flourish, I whipped the purple Disneyland hat out of the bag. He knew he was in trouble when he saw that hat. The class reacted in glee, insisting that he had promised to eat my hat. There I stood, a small dark girl, good at math, holding a hat with a long pink feather with floppy silky vanes.
He stuttered and stumbled and somehow convinced us to wait until the next day. He returned to the math lesson.
The next day, the principal came in and gave us some lecture about something to do with the hat and teacher, don't remember what. Then the teacher himself got up and started a long involved impassioned description of some intestinal condition he had complete with diagrams and drawings on the board. Bottom line: he couldn't eat the hat prominently displayed in the front of the room. Then he passed out candy bars to everybody instead of eating the purple Disneyland felt hat.
He admitted that I had been right in the math problem.
I am sure that he never used that phrase again.
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