When I entered the 7th grade at the Sherman, Texas, Piner Junior High School in the fall of 1962, it presented a entirely new page of worldliness and sophistication. I was no longer in a grade school of freshly-scrubbed students with pre-adolescent voices, where boys and girls had roughly the same physique. This was a new world of “almost” young adults, puberty was rampant and it was extremely intimidating.
We showered after P.E. with 9th graders, some who were haired-over, well- endowed men and the rest of us resembled pudgy babies. There was a core of 9th grade male students who looked like they may have been held back a few grades over the years. Most of them were shaving, smoked regularly and a couple even drove cars to school! Their girlfriends looked like grown women, quite buxom, with a lot of make up and reeking of sexuality. This was an overwhelming onslaught of sophistication and maturity for an 11
Shortly after beginning the 7th grade, I was reprimanded for talking in class (an on-going complaint throughout my education.) I did it a second time and this teacher flew into a rage. She dragged me down to the office and complained to our assistant principal about my behavior. She said I would not listen to her mandates and she did not intend to deal with a juvenile delinquent like me. Her quote was right out of a movie, not to come out for a few more years, “Cool Hand Luke.” Holding me under my arm, up on my tip toes she exclaimed, “You HAVE to get this boy’s mind right and I mean RIGHT!”
I believe our assistant principal’s name was Dolphus Haddock. He was a young, nice man and he seemed just as intimidated by my instructor, as I was. He promised, “We will get Bucky’s mind right!” This meant I wasn’t going to get whacked by a board and sent back or stay after school in her room, she was too angry. I was informed, due to her overwhelming prejudice towards me, this would require a complete brain washing. I had to stay after school in a room with the other thugs who could not behave themselves and mingle with polite society. This should take about a week, but it was all up to me to demonstrate the cleansing of my soul and to convince the administration “my mind was right.” This was “souped up, double secret detention”…reserved for the worst of the worst.
I had signed up for band and was supposed to be learning to play this ancient, silver, metal clarinet my great great grandfather had allegedly played during the Civil War. I was arguably the worst clarinet player to ever darken the doors of Piner Junior High and had only signed up because we got to leave class early. Practice was after school and I pointed out this punishment would interfere with my music career, thereby punishing the entire band. Mr. Haddock contacted Mr. Chapman, our band director, with the news of my confinement and he could not have cared less. He did not see me as a long term contributor to the band’s success.
That afternoon I reported to the detention room with Mr. Haddock and my criminal brother-“hoods”. I was the only student from the 7th grade. The others were these gangsters, straight from the casting of “Blackboard
Jungle.” Most had greasy, combed-back hair with sideburns, cigarettes in their shirt pockets or rolled up in the sleeve of their tee shirt. All were crowded into the back of the room in undersized, one piece desks. They were watching me with “wolf-like”, green, evil eyes and chuckling to themselves over my obvious terror.
I turned pale, gulped and beseeched Mr. Haddock with a heartfelt, “Please Mr. Haddock my mind is right…I will never talk in class again.”
He said, “Just sit anywhere Bucky.”
My new fellow inmates howled! “BUNKY? HIS NAME IS BUNKY?”…HA, HA, HA, HA…
“All right settle down”
”HEY BUNKY, COME SIT BACK HERE WITH ME!” … “YEAH, COME ON BACK HERE BUNKY!”
I moved to the back with “students” who looked as old as my father. They smelled of Wild-Root cream oil, cigarettes and bad breath. Mr. Haddock began reading his paper and these grown outlaws turned their attention to me. In a high-staged whisper one asked, “So Bunky…what are you doing here in detention? What did you do?”
“I was talking in class.”
“TALKING?”
“THAT’S IT? TALKING?”
They all started choking with muffled laughter.
Attempting to be polite, I asked, “Well, what did you do?” The head “hood” produced a rather long knife and began cleaning his fingernails.
He nonchalantly said, “Murder.”
I immediately felt faint and turned ghostly white. “Mu-mu-murder?”
“Yeah, I stabbed a teacher, but he hasn’t died yet…that’s why I am in detention. If he dies, I go to jail and then it’s on to the Sherman electric chair”. (All the outlaws were stifling laughter.)
Mr. Haddock looked up from his paper and asked, “Bucky, are you OK?”
The leader of the hoods said, “Yeah Mr. Haddock, Bunky don’t look too good.” I asked to go to the restroom and splashed cold water on my face. I fought back the desire to hurl lunch and sat on the cold restroom floor for a few minutes.
I returned to detention, excused myself from my fellow prisoners and pretended to focus on homework, while silently reciting the 23rd Psalm, over ands over. After our time was up and Mr. Haddock said we could leave, the hoods asked if I needed a ride..(“psst…come with us Bunky…we’re going to knock over a 7-11 on the way home”) I thanked them profusely, but declined and walked home.
The next day I wept, begged and apologized to the teacher I had offended and she told Mr. Haddock she felt my mind was right. My mind WAS right! My fellow detention-ees kind of drifted away from school after awhile and I would see the “chieftain-hood” around Sherman, where I was greeted with a, “Hi-ya there Bunky! Been talking in class or knocking over any banks?”
My mother would ask, “Who is that MAN? What is that about?” I gave a feeble smile and shrugged. For the rest of the year, I simply assumed the stabbed teacher had lived and this kept my new buddy, “the leader of the pack”, out of the Sherman electric chair.
Comments
Post a Comment