Mystery Doctor

In the early 60’s through 1970, I taught at Waterloo Junior High School on Howard County, MD. This became Waterloo Middle School somewhere along the line and dropped the 9th grade and added the 6th.This is another story from that time.

The young girl came home from school and told her mother that the doctor at school said she needed glasses. Rather than say “I’ll take you to the doctor”, the mother asked, “what Doctor?” The young girl explained that many of the kids were all examined and she was told about her eyesight. The mother got upset and demanded more information.

The next morning the mother called school and spoke to the principal and asked about these examinations by the doctor and the principal said, “what examinations?”

The parents met with the principal and the police later that day and the teachers were all called to an emergency meeting to see if we saw anyone suspicious in the school and we all said,” what Doctor?”

The girl told the police that she was examined with some other kids, in an empty classroom, but she didn’t know the kids names. She said she could recognize them if she saw them again, so the next day a policeman and the student  stood outside of the cafeteria and watched each lunch shift come in, so she could see all the children and identify the other ones. 

In looking back at it now, they may have been looking at every male teacher as well to see if any one of us was the doctor.

She was unable to identify anyone.

When questioned a bit harder, she admitted she made the whole story up because she wanted to get glasses. 

We had another teachers meeting that afternoon to assure us there was no problem and that we could all calm down.

The Kodak Moment

“A Kodak Moment was defined as a phrase used when taking a picture of someone at a particular moment that will never be forgotten. Kodak cameras used this expression as part of their advertising many years ago.”

This is either a case of the time of year being Christmas, my general look of old and disheveled or some magical moment in time that happened by circumstance, but it all was real. I stood in disbelief….

In the mornings, usually at 8:00 a.m., I take Max, our dog, for a walk. I use the same route every day so I am patterned which works for me, and the timing is always the same. When I reach the elementary school, there is a path and a dotted line across the street and usually, cars will stop and let me cross. This is sometimes precarious; as I can’t start out until I am sure they will stop. I am always thankful and wave at the cars and smile. They have usually been very good about stopping.

On the way back, there is no dotted line at my crossing, and I will wait until there is a break in morning traffic to cross.

Last week, when I got to the final cross over, traffic was moving along and we waited quietly on the corner. Suddenly, the man coming down on my left stopped dead! All traffic behind him had no choice but to do the same. Immediately, the traffic on the right, speeding down the hill, saw the guy had stopped and not wishing to kill this old guy and his dog, stopped dead!

For a brief moment I stood still, and suddenly realized they were waiting for me to cross! Max and I hurried across the street, waving and thanking everyone and tears running down my cheeks realizing that two lines of morning traffic had stopped dead to let an old man and his dog cross the street!

Lemongrass....

The top of my to do list today told me to go to the market and get lemongrass for making dinner tonight. Not a usual thing for us, but this morning I went to supermarket get the lemongrass and they were out, and a woman who worked there told me they usually have it but were out just now. I decided since I had the time, I’d go downtown and go to the Asian market as they would surely have some.

When I went in the Asian market there were about a dozen customers and a few employees, all of them Asian and all the signage was in Chinese. I had to come to grips with the startling fact that I had no idea what lemongrass looked like! In the supermarket the signage was in English so I wasn’t worried but now I had no idea what anything said.

The employees seemed to be conversing in Chinese, but I did my best to try and explain my situation, and was stared at until I said lemongrass.  The woman I was speaking to ran and showed me where the lemongrass was, and of course, what it was!

For my $1 I had a meaningful and purposeful learning experience.

The Great Money Pile

We had inherited lots of furniture and related household stuff from a cousin about 10 year ago. I know I’ve told the story of getting it here from a New York City high rise, and all the drama involved with the border crossing.

We’ve used it all for these many years and the other day I looked into a box, long forgotten, which held lots of souvenir change, money left over from various exotic trips around the world and saved. I did have it all checked out recently and it is basically worthless unless you happen to be in the country and they haven’t moved to the Euro etc. I could sell it by the pound, and I did. No silver or gold present there.

However, while in the big box, I discovered all these bills. You can see the lot! I knew it was either a great discovery or a new pile of Monopoly Money.

I rushed over to the International Currency Exchange, as they promised me they’d go through it and let me know. They were very kind and spent time looking, and admitted they never seen most of these bills but sadly, they were either out of circulation or in countries where there was now the Euro.

There was one good bill, which brought me $12.50 and a lot of laughs with the rest of the pile.

Someone will use these bills for a great collage I hope and I will honor all reasonable requests. They could become a table top. 

My dreams of the great discovery dried up so very quickly…..but I still can collect $200 passing Go.

I am a "nomal person" I just carry around headless nudes....

My daughter wanted a dress dummy at first, and then we moved on to perhaps a mannequin. 

 

But those were in my mind, and when Target was selling out they had discounted the mannequins but they were expensive ( $75 a piece for top and bottom) and even when it dropped lower, $37.50 each, they had no way to stand up. They were a very light fiberglass and would not have worked.

In my morning wandering in the Mall every day I began to notice that a Ricki’s store was closing and it was selling off the fixtures. Waiting until the last days, I took my self in and explained to the saleswoman that I was a “normal person” but it was a present for my daughter. We had a good laugh and after some discussion, I purchased a mannequin for $50 including a chrome stand. They had a few left, even a sitting one but I knew she wanted a standing one and quite frankly I didn’t really need one or even want one.

After paying for it I asked the fatal question, did I have to carry this nude model out of the mall? At least they had a back door making for a shorter and more secretive trip. I took he arms in a big bag along with the chrome base and carried the nude woman out with one hand in her crotch praying I could make it to my car. The only person I saw was the UPS man who tried to look away. I had to stop and explain to him that I was “normal” and it was a present for my daughter and we had a big laugh.

Tonight we drove to Toronto to deliver it and my wife and daughter were able to get it into the building and onto an elevator and into her apartment. Thank God it’s out of my house!

Just take a left turn up ahead please.....

My mother started to drive as a young woman; I assumed it was when she was in her teens although I know very little about these times. She did get a driver’s license early on and renewed it every year of her life.

I do know when she married my father in 1935, part of the deal was that he was the driver. I never remember her driving anywhere when I was a child. It was just what was.

My mother cooked and my father drove.

Being much younger than my father (11 years) she knew there may come a day when she would be alone and need to drive and didn’t want to start from scratch, so she kept renewing the license.

My father passed away when my mother was 60, and while we got rid of his somewhat problematic car, it was not too long before she decided to purchase a new car for herself.

We visited a car salesman friend of mine and made a deal on a new Chevrolet Nova that seemed just about right for her.  When she eventually stopped driving the car some years later, it was purchased by me and eventually went to my son where it ended its life.

But while she was driving, she was a cautious driver, and took a series of professional driving and parking lessons after her first lesson from me, who kept my hands over my eyes and screamed a bit.

After she was comfortable driving, she helped my family out a great deal by helping with getting kids to school and events when needed and helping to deliver the newspaper on a rainy day and often saved my sons from getting soaked.

My focus here was the habit she developed of not being comfortable making left turns, so she stayed with right ones. She developed elaborate schemes for getting from place to place, only turning right. Sometimes she would proudly show up early on a Sunday to announce she had a done dry run to someplace or another that she had to go the next day and figured out how to do it turning right only.

It was an amazing skill, one that I admired but never tried to copy.

You can try it, just pick a destination, preferably urban as she was driving around Baltimore, Maryland, and figure on a place at least 15 minutes away and get there without turning left. 

It is of course possible, just not my way of thinking.