Even before she rounded the corner, the unmistakable staccato footsteps dashed my hopes…hopes that I would have had any teacher but this one. The training ground was Crossett (Arkansas) High School, and she was the drill instructor charged with instilling into her recruits the skill to handle a weapon they would wield all of their lives — the English language.
She wasn't one of the "fun" teachers who naturally attracted admirers. There's no way that the relentless burden of 50 (maybe it just seemed like 50) new vocabulary words a week — every week –could ever be construed as "fun."
Yet there was something worse: she occasionally critiqued our written assignments with an overhead projector. With our sins publicly exposed in graphic detail, she offered instruction, correction and reproof for each transgression. No names were actually ever mentioned, but handwriting didn't conceal identities too well.
Needless to say, I was glad to move on at year's end. Soon in college, I mysteriously found myself in honors English, a curious place for an engineering student. But I did OK. Still, there was a connection that I wouldn't make until much later in life when cause and effect would be more in focus.
The intervening years have erased many specifics — like when to use a possessive with a gerund and why a dog lies, rather than lays, on a rug — but she left me with an unshakable feel for proper grammatical construction. Even so, I would honestly be very uncomfortable with her reading this column. In an instant she could whip out that projector and … wham … wham … wham … chopped cabbage all over again. Just like in high school.
I realize that ability is God-given, but whatever I have acquired in the way of learned skill in handling the written word has its roots in Mrs. Huie's 11th-grade English class. And I am grateful.
I wish that I knew her whereabouts so that I could thank her for the immeasurable benefit that her diligence and determination have brought into my life. But I didn't see the importance then … when I could have so easily told her in person.
Now on the other side of 50, what I overlooked in my youth is clearer: success is largely a result of the investments that others have made in us. I'm indebted to so many for the time, energy, money, patience, and expertise they have expended on my behalf. But how often have I made the effort to go back and thank them for what they've done? Too seldom, I fear.
Without a conscious effort, ingratitude so easily overtakes us, leaving a vast deserving host unacknowledged and unthanked for their sacrifices. But what an encouragement it is when someone remembers!
Of his mother, Abraham Lincoln said, "All than I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." Could this humble, grateful attitude help explain his greatness?
Mrs. Huie, where are you? I need to tell you something.
Copyright 1998 James McAlister
James,
Reading your article brought back the memories of my 8th grad english teacher. Ms Rhode.I thought she was about 80 when she taugh me and younger when she taught my aunts and uncles before me. She was an “old Maid”. Years later I found an ASTC(UCA)annual
and found her in it. She had been there homecoming queen, she way very attractive. She made us read a lot, do many book reports, memorize “Hi Flight by John Gillespie Magee” (I dont know how I remeber that). Raise one hand for a question, Two hands
for the bathroom and stand for an emergency. She had taken a few out in the halls and even prayed for them. She was politically uncorrect for this time, but God knew we needed her in that time.
When I ran for an political office she came to work in my campaign. Twenty five years after high school. When I wrote her a thankyou letter, I wrote it 3 times to make sure it was grammatically correct for fear it would come back with red ink on it. My writting and spelling aren’t perfect, but it wasn’t because I didn’t have the perfect teacher. She was an institution. My officers worked her natural death and I was deeply saddened by what the world lost, but greatly affected by what she left.