Remembered for All the Wrong Reasons

Going to school was magical.  In kindergarten I had Miss Dingee - she was beeeyuuuuuutiful and so nice.  Everyone in Miss Dingee's class loved her.  School was safe, fun and wonderful. After the perfect year, complete with going to her family's farm to pick pumpkins, I couldn't wait for my next perfect adventure - the first grade.  You went all day in the first grade and rode on the bus with the big kids.  We would even get to go to the cafeteria for lunch!

That first day, clutching my new pencil box, I rushed into my first grade classroom.  The teacher sure didn't look like Miss Dingee - she was old! (In reality she was probably 35 which we all know is NOT OLD.)  Mrs. Hawkins had put our names on a desk.  We each had an assigned desk.  The desk was slanted and opened up - you could keep your pencil box and papers inside.  I had never seen such a miraculous thing before.  Boy, did I love opening and closing that desk.  She showed us the cloak room - that is a really big closet and we each had our very own hook and a little shelf for lunch pails.  I knew that I was going to love being in the first grade.  And then - I didn't.

Why am I telling your this?  Today I went to a hoolie - an Irish get together complete with bagpipes, singing and lots of dancing.  It was a howling hoot and lots of fun except for the time a group of women started remembering the teachers who scarred them for life.  A successful 31 year old started the riff, rant and rag by telling the tale of the middle school teacher who told her to quit school when she was 16 because she was too stupid to be anything.  What a swell thing to tell a kid with a learning disability.  Luckily, she had a mom who was a true advocate and she was switched out of that class.  It took a lot for her to get over being not only a different style of learner but "too stupid to be anything".  She still remembers the time and place of that crack.  Then there was the story of a student being in a hall way walking behind two members of the teaching profession to hear one of them go off on what a horrible kid she was.  Now, she hadn't known she was a horrible kid until she overheard the conversation.  Don't teachers realize that little people do listen?

All eyes turned to me - was I the only one who hadn't been scared by some teacher who probably shouldn't have been teaching?  Gulp, how could I tell the tale of Mrs. Hawkins.  The thought of her and IT made me want to run in the cloak room and hide.  

The first few months of first grade had gone along without any drama.  Mrs. Hawkins wasn't the most entertaining of teachers but I was in the blue bird reading group and got to become very familiar with good old Dick and Jane.  We pretty much did everything as a group.  Lined up and marched to the cafeteria.  Lined up and marched to the rest rooms.  Lined up and marched to the hall way to practice leaning on the wall with our arms over our heads in case the big bomb dropped.  All that togetherness was swell unless you have to go to the bathroom when it wasn't scheduled. You had to raise your hand and ask permission to make a run down the hall.  If we were doing something really important for our six year old  brains than we had to wait until that very important task was done. One day that cute little girl in the picture - me - raised her hand.  Mrs. Hawkins rolled her eyes and asked "what?"  

"I need to go to the bathroom please."  "No. This is important."  I crossed my skinny little legs, clutched the side of my chair and figured I could wait it out.  When I knew I couldn't wait another second, I raised my scrawny little arm again.  "What," she barked.  "Please can I go to the bathroom."  " I told you no.  Just wait."

And then it happened - first a little dribble, then a whoosh of liquid was racing down my chair and under my desk.  The jeers, laughter and "baby" taunts surrounded me.  I wanted to lift up the top of my desk and crawl inside but my skirt was dripping wet, even my socks were wet.  Mrs. Hawkins stormed down the aisle, took me by the arm and tossed me in the cloak room and shut the door. (When you were "not behaving" you got stowed away in the cloak room.)  I don't know who went and got her but the school nurse appeared and took me to her office.  Little drips followed us down the hall way.  Someone must have called my mom because she raced in with clean clothes.  I  didn't want the clothes, I just wanted to go home.  The nurse and my mom said I had to back to class.  I had just had an accident and everyone understood.  "No", I screamed, "they laughed at me and Mrs. Hawkins put me in the black closet."  They kept insisting and then well - I don't remember if I went back or not - I think it was a vodka-less blackout.  I don't remember much more about the first grade except that I hated it and hated school.  Luckily for me my second grade teacher restored my love for learning - now what was her name?  Why do we remember the wicked ones and not the nice ones?

Years later, I was president of the school board in the town I grew up in.  The superintendent announced at a board meeting that a staff member was retiring and that the board president usually went to the party and gave the teacher a gift.  I said I would be delighted to go and asked who was retiring.  He replied, "Mrs. Hawkins".  I must have turned 50 shades of gray and sputtered, "I'm busy".  "I didn't tell you when it was." "It doesn't matter that bitch can burn in hell before I would honor her at a retirement dinner".  Did I just say out loud "that bitch can burn in hell".  I think I did - damn her she embarrassed me again!  I then regaled the board with my little first grade accident tale - pointing out the pain, shame and hate of school that accident brought on.  No, I did not cave and go to her retirement dinner.  Payback often comes when you least expect it.

The Irish music at the hoolie was getting louder and no one wanted to tell more dastardly teacher tales anyway so the ranting stopped.  As I moved towards the laughter, I got a quick flash of Mrs. Hawkin's face and wondered if she knew she was remembered for all the wrong reasons?

Ruth St. Denis and I Went for a 9 Month Journey

Wow, do i have a lot to learn about blogging.  I just discovered that I wrote this but never hit "publish".   This is old news but hey it was just sitting there on the draft table.

Ruth St. Denis, the mother of modern dance in America, was a Somerset County, NJ native - as am I. In the early 1980's we formed a special bond - she invaded my brain, heart and soul. Reading her autobiorgraphy, An Unfinished Life, I became totally hooked. This incredible woman ran multiple businesses, published volumes of poetry, articles, essays and books, danced until she died in 1968 and was perpetually attractive to gentleman half her age! Miss Ruth, as she was called by her dancers, their students and their grand-students, was conceived in a socialist art colony by one of the first female doctors in the US and her not quite yet inventor husband.

In November of 2006, I got a call from the Director of the Performing Arts Program at Somerset County Vocational Technical High School. The Dance Department and the Somerset County Cultural and Heritage Commission wanted to produce a multi-month celebration of Miss Ruth. Was I interested? I - who hate meetings - raced to the first one. Having more than twenty years ago with Michelle Mathesius produced the first Ruth St. Denis Festival in the county, I had file boxes full of information.

Gulp, that one meeting led to a nine month journey with my favorite lady. The ultimate project included my curating an exhibit that represented the various sides of Miss Ruth - that was pretty easy since I have a huge collection of St. Denis pix.

Loving the poetry of Miss Ruth, I selected some and Shiela Buttermore had her student dancers choreograph movement to each poem. I worked with the student actors on a reader's theatre style presentation. Our first performance was on a 900000000 degree day at the Grounds for Sculpture.
 The dances and words were wonderful. I practically fainted as the water dripped off me. We did the pieces again at the Somerset County Environmental Center. An audience of approximately 70 dance afficiandos came and enjoyed!

We conducted a poety writing contest in the County's middle schools. The theme was 'movement". In September the winning poems were presented to an audience and young dancers choreographed movement to represent the feeling of each piece. Sounds easy! I took the poems and interwove them - so that the total poem was eventually read just not necessarily in order. That meant that I had to work with the student actor readers on breathing real life into the words and the dances would intermingle and overlap. It was a wonderful time for authors, dancers and actors.

Not done yet! On October 4th and 5th, we presented the dance/theatre event that I wrote. A high-school actor, complete with white wig and sari, played Miss Ruth. The convention that I used was
based on a taped interview I heard at the Performing Arts Library in NYC. Miss Ruth, on that tape, was dancing away from questions being asked by the interviewer. My interviewer became a young reporter for MS Magazine trying to find out what made this feminist tick. Well that sounds like enough now for a multi month festival - wrong.

October 13th was the final event. Ruth St. Denis Spiritual Words and Movement featured the wonderful recreation of Miss Ruth's solo Incense by Martha Graham Company soloist, Katherin Crockett. I read the spritual poetry of St. Denis. Some of which were interpreted by student dancers. One piece was investigated by a contempory modern dance company "moe Tion."  Students from Rider University's dance department also presented a piece.

Whew, a nine month ride.  I'm ready to start again.  Any producers?

I just discovered the ease of blogging from the Google Ap on my iPad.  It appears seamless.  I went to the blog icon and my blog page - long unused and lonely -  appeared .  Originally, the blog was set up so that my arts administration students would stop making fun of me for not being part of the techno savvy 20th century.  Since I no longer taught nor had taunting students, the blog just languished.  This easy iPad application has sparked my imagination.  Not being tied to a computer suddenly meant I could use the blog as a place to ramble, bore, enlighten or just plain vent.  Lets see just how far I'll go and how long our dash out notes.  Let the blogging begin!

Oops, not so seamless. The preview button didn't quickly allow me to "see" what the post would look like.  After about four minutes, I just went back to the edit mode.  The real test, I will now hit post and see what happens.