United We Stand, Part I
December 21, 2005 by Douglas · Leave a Comment
There was this one time, in High school when I was kind of a troublemaker. Totally out of my element I know, cause I was usually so shy and docile.
I had the great fortune of taking Spanish for three years, even though I was only required to take the two. My first two years resulted in D and C grades – I just could not get into it. I am sure that if I tried I could have mastered it well, but I was stubborn, leaning the opposite direction from A Student. My parents were pretty excited when my two years were up, and I could take any other class I wanted. But with a lot of large schools, my requested schedule did not fit the classes and times they had available. I was called into school two weeks before school was to begin again, and select a new array. I ended up choosing 3rd year Spanish because it was one of the only choices for that period. My mom went muy loco – “Why would you select it a third year!? You get Ds in Spanish!” It kind of became a back door joke.
I was lucky however to have the same teacher each time… kind of a given since we only had the one Spanish teacher, Senora Eide. She liked me, even though I was a smart ass. She had my sister in Spanish as well two years before me – and she was exemplary. I think I was the cute exception to the rule. I fell far from the tree.
And this is how it came to pass, that I was a maker of trouble.
Senora Eide always spent that negative-first-period before school started, grading papers and helping the students who wanted some of her time. My friend Danny and I often hung out in her room before school, I don’t recall why – other than we liked to make her laugh. It was also a fact that after the first bell, she would high tail it to the teacher’s lounge for some “fresh” coffee. This was my window of opportunity. A wild hair jumped into my shorts and devised a plan so utterly stupid – no one would even suspect us!
Most teachers had one period with no students, and hers was first, which made our/my plan more ingenious. She walked out of the room – and it was then that I sprung into action. I ran up behind her desk, stood on her rolley chair and swiped the American Flag. With no first period, and no students – I was certain that she did not run through the rhetoric of recanting the verses alone. She would never be the wiser! I busted out of the room and down the hall to my locker, which was a B-line to the left. I dialed my combination, stashed the flag, and then bolted for my own first period Geometry 3-4 class with Mrs. Morris.
All day I thought about how to get that damn flag out of school. I ended up going with the only option, regardless of how blatant. I slid the rolled up stars and stripes into one sleeve of my fleece lined jeans jacket, then into the other. I walked out of school with a fleecy fishing rod, climbed onto my bus, and rode all the way home. No one mentioned a thing.
