Looking at this old A&J from 1998, I think of my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Graham. Mrs. Graham sported pinkish hair, way ahead of its time, and drove a 1958 Oldsmobile whose color matched her hair. I kid you not. Mrs. Graham was kind enough, but she had a calm professional manner that did not instantly endear her to children of an age when favorite teachers all had a sweet side. But we 5th graders were growing up, and Mrs. Graham was the perfect teacher. She was the first teacher I remember who began to instruct us in the craft of writing. She introduced us to “themes,” which is what she called short essays. She encouraged us to reach, to think of verbs more descriptive than “went” or “said.” Mrs. Graham’s class was the first place it was noticed that I have a talent for this sort of thing, and Mrs. Graham did the noticing. I even worked dialog into some of my themes, complete with quote marks, and that had to be something she didn’t encounter every day. She even told me I had an ear for dialog. If she could see me now! I probably have not given her enough credit for her influence upon me.
92 responses to “The Lady in the Pink Olds”
Arlo: A prophet is not without honor save in his own country.
Teachers can do a lot for a young student’s confidence and self-esteem!
Jimmy: You have broken the shackles of the past, whereas I still remain in the days of yore with “dialogue.”
My wife had a very young teacher who influenced her when she was about the fifth grade. She basically said the same thing that she had a knack for dialogue. Years later we read that she was retiring and Marianne contacted her and let her know that she’d been a multi published author. Her reaction was “Oh I knew that was going to happen!”
Have any of you checked out the “more from Arlo and Janis” below the comments section…right now I’m working my way through Ludwig….
like this classic: http://assets.amuniversal.com/42cefd308a48012eb067001dd8b71c47
Mark, you’ll appreciate this:
https://i.chzbgr.com/full/9114415872/h0D65D9EB/
…never was a big fan of theirs
After forced absence, I’m back. Posted #51, last item on previous [“next”] page. Later,
My fifth grade teacher Mrs. Cook taught me to write words and I have always given her credit.
A remarkable woman who survived the great Galveston hurricane tied to a post in her attic. Her husband and children washed away as she watched.
She lives on in those of us she touched and reached.
Debbe, I agree the cats are cute and I’m not a fan of that group either.
Jackie, good luck with the plans for your business. Along the lines of changes and age, one of my FB friends has worked in the newspaper business for years. A few years ago he took a job with a small paper in Texas. Just in the last couple of weeks he announced he had bought the paper from the people he’d been working for. I think he’s 61 or 62, so it’s not too late to change your life as long as you’re living it.
Jimmy, you need to get that cat funnel on the market. You would make millions! And save a lot of buying of first-aid supplies for the cat owners.
Had an English teacher back in 7th grade, the year we learned to diagram sentences, she was the one who turned me on to language along with my Fargone Swiss father. An annual assignment for her students the following year, yes I had Mrs. Rabidoux again was for us to write our autobiography. For me this Symply entailed as great a deal of exaggeration and buffoonery as an adolescent could conjure. From there a love of words grew. Mrs Rabidoux (my sister Marlyse’s 7th grade teacher as well)was met the summer before 7th grade at the local emporium where I was getting my clothes for the following school year. I remembered my smart aleck remark was to the effect of; I hope I don’t have you next year upon introduction. She turned out to be a very large, scary woman who was not loving but definitely infinitely caring of her students and impacted many lives…thanks JJ for bringing me back to this.
Arlo says “ensconced”; Janis says “ensconsed”, twice. Methinks the former spelling is correct.
Then, too, I believe I have seen the same word without the first “n”: “esconced”. That is likely incorrect, though I have been known to use the word with that first “n” elided from the pronunciation.
JM: Your Mrs. Cook must have been still teaching at age 75 or so if she were already married and a multi-mother by the 1900 hurricane. Given your birth year, you’d have been in 5th grade around 1955, right?
My 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Potter, big claim to fame was she was born in the Indian Territory. She must of been 60ish when she had me as a student. Looking back, most of my elementary teachers were in that age range. Today, all of them appear to be in their 20’s and 30’s.
I skipped a couple of grades but close, I suspect 1954?
Mrs. Cook taught my mother and all her siblings when they got public schools in Louisiana and bused in the country children.
Before that the rural schools were one room schools paid for and built by the land owners. They paid the teachers too and boarded them with a land owner. The one in our rural community where my mother and siblings started school was about a mile down dirt road on next plantation. My oldest aunt, a half sister to my mom, taught her siblings there.
In 1928 Govenor Huey Long built public schools in every town, made free text books available to every child and made free busing available. Before that there was al.ost no schools available in our state.
Over half the state was illiterate at that time. He began a huge literacy campaign to educate adults and enable all to read and write.
However, I just read article that Louisiana ranked 49th in education in 2017.
In the ’40s, at 13 or 15, I visited the LA capitol bldg. in BR, saw the assassination site, maybe damaged marble in the wall. Got curious, did a search, found this.
\\https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Weiss
Also noticed a prediction for a hi of 31F Wed. We may get a Jan. thaw.
As for the literacy rate, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.
excuse me, education rate.
Got some of my books in I ordered written by Rheta Grimsley Johnson. Reading the first “Enchanted Evening Barbie and the Second Coming.”
Gives you a deeper understanding of Janis despite Rheta claiming the character is not based on her. Sure looked a lot alike in early days of the Days.
In retrospect, I may have been most influenced by my seventh grade teacher…a cigarette-smokin’, whisky-drinkin’ divorcee.
Just kidding.
Or am I?
I had several teachers throughout all of my school years who changed my life.
I have been fortunate to have had students who told me that I also changed theirs. It’s deeply humbling, and I know that I don’t deserve their praise.
I like to think that, if I actually had that effect, I am returning the favor that my teachers bestowed upon me.
Rick: “… I know that I don’t deserve their praise. I like to think that, if I actually had that effect, I am returning the favor that my teachers bestowed upon me.”
You probably do. It happens a lot, and is gratifying, and you are returning the favor. You cannot repay such mentors, but you can pay it forward.”
Peace,
Still reading Rheta but going to bed to sleep, not read. This is Rheta’s autobiography, the one she measured in Christmases. Her second autobiography she measured in dogs.
Because of Jimmy I find this more interesting than the usual Southern genre missive.
And there was Jim Young suddenly appearing.
My 12 grade English teacher was a holy terror who though we band students deserved to lose credit in her class because we were gone for a week each year for the annual band trip to competitions in other states. She had graduated from college at 19, and had tried to enlist in any nation’s army that would let her kill Nazis in WWII. She also had been on a professional women’s basketball team that featured redheads. I had never truly disliked a female teacher before meeting her.