Mrs. O

The boy began to thrash violently

back and forth while sitting at his desk.

Mrs. O had reached out her right hand

and grabbed his left shoulder

and began shaking him vigorously,

then twisted his left ear for good measure.

The former grin on his face had

quickly turned to a look of agony.

“Welcome to Mrs. O’s

fourth-grade class,”

whispered one fearful boy

sitting across from me.

I had just moved into town

with three months remaining

in fourth grade.

She was always ready

to display her displeasure

in various forms

when one of her class rules

had been violated

by a rambunctious boy.

These periodic thrashing

reminded me of clothes

in a washing machine

being thrashed about.

I never witnessed any girl

going through the wash cycle,

probably due to being smarter

than the boys,

but I had observed

on more than one occasion

boys having their laundry cleaned.

Failure to heed Mrs. O’s warnings

landed you in hot water.

Looking back

I give her credit;

she always issued a warning.

Once that invisible line was crossed,

someone was fixing to be made an example.

Mrs. O was my first encounter

with the proverbial battle-axe for a teacher.

She was a stocky middle-aged woman

whose stockings ran below the knees

and whose patience was wound as tight

as the bun on her head.

Once she let her patience down,

She went maniacal on any violation

of class statutes.

She was a judge, jury, and executioner.

Her horn-rimmed glasses hung down

near the end of her nose

as her eyes constantly scanned

for any signs of trouble.

Her ears were more sensitive than a cat

which was particularly useful for her

when she had her back turned to the class.

When the recess bell sounded,

my new friends and I

would bolt out of the schoolroom

to release all of our pent-up energy

out on the playground

that was getting us into trouble

in the classroom…

Mrs. O treated recess

as a reward for good behavior.

If you were caught talking in class

or misbehaving in some way and

you failed to heed the warnings,

recess was taken away and

you had to remain in the room

while everyone else went out to play.

Then Mrs. O would hand you a dictionary

and instructed you to pick a page

and start copying it 

on a clean piece of paper.

She was gracious enough

to allow us to pick out the page  

as long as it was dense with words.

When the good children returned from recess,

the ones in confinement

were required to turn in their

work of tedium to Mrs. O.

Sometimes,
I would have much preferred

the washing machine treatment  

than remaining inside at recess

with Mr. Webster and Mrs. O.

Mrs. O’s arsenal for riot control

was not limited to shaking students,

twisting ears, or even sentencing one

to a slow dictionary death.

She would also employ the blackboard

to demonstrate why talking in class

doesn’t pay.

Once she had me, the new student,

draw a circle on the chalkboard

in front of the class, instructing me

to keep my nose touching the board

within the circle for ten minutes.

Then she bellowed

as my nose was plastered to the chalkboard,

“See what happens, class,

when you don’t remain quiet and listen!”

She continued to lecture while

I stood there sniffing chalk residue.

When I was finally allowed to sit down

you could see two moist spots

where my nose had been!

I chalked up another lesson….

Another tool of torture  

for suppressing the non-compliant

was the traditional dunce hat.

If you did something really stupid,

like talking back, horseplay,

or unable to tame the unruly tongue,

you could wind up

sitting on a stool

in front of the class,

sporting a conical-shaped hat.

Been there dunce that, too!

At the end of every class year,

Mrs. O would erase all memories

of her class by having a drawing.

She would put all of our names

inside a box.

As she pulled out a name

that person could pick

from whatever was

inevitably heading for the dumpster.

When she pulled out my name

The selections were slim;

I wound up choosing a tiny plant,
something I always wanted...
So, I picked it for my mom!

The most important thing

Mrs. O taught me was

that there was a time to speak

and a time to be silent.

She was the strictest disciplinarian

throughout my elementary school years.

Of a truth,
my lips were like greased lightning

prior to entering Mrs. O’s class.  

She sure did have a way of  

degreasing a pair of young lips!

Her style of teaching had a way of

leaving you, for lack of a better word,

speechless.