LaShandra

I've got a girl in my homeroom this year named LaShandra, and she is an absolute delight.  She and I butt heads once a week or so over some of the silliest things.  I like the way she's never afraid to speak up, even if she's wrong and you can PROVE it to her.  (She's actually quite smart and quick-witted, and even when she's wrong she can still present a reasonable, persuasive case for her point of view.)  Arguing with her can be exasperating as hell, and I can see already that she's going to be one of my favorite students ever.  And I will miss her when she's gone.

I teach four classes of seventh-grade math, and also teach spelling and reading to my homeroom.  I'm a pretty good math teacher, I think.  Last year, my classes improved so much (21%) that the state examining board made us retake the math EOC (End of Course) tests because they thought we might have "mis-administered" the tests.  (That's a polite way of saying that they think we cheated.  It's happened in other school systems in the state, so you have to understand their skepticism.)  The Georgia Department of Education sent two proctors to re-administer the test under their supervision, and this time around our math score showed a 22% improvement.  So I went from being suspected by my principal...she's a nice lady, and I don't blame her for wondering...to being considered the hot-shot teacher at the moment.  (To be fair, the reason our scores improved so much is that we had a really smart group of kids, who had an AWFUL teacher the year before...and by the end of that school the year a lot of them had just quit trying.  Thank goodness that man is not teaching anymore!)  

But though I try hard, I'm only a so-so spelling and reading teacher, I'm afraid.  Spelling, of course, is mostly just memorization.  We have a different set of 20 words each week, and a test on Friday.  On Monday, we read over each word...talk about it...discuss its etymology and any other root combinations that might be similar.  The words always have something in common.  We've got a Halloween grouping coming up soon, and we're working on transportation words this week.  I require the kids to either write a grammatically-correct sentence using each word, or else write a story using any 15 of them.  Some of the kids enjoy writing the story, which requires more thinking but less work...while others prefer just writing a sentence with each word, requiring more work but less thinking. 

A couple of weeks ago, one of our words was magic.  The kids enjoyed that group.  Most of them are Harry Potter fans, and we had other similar words with it:  wizard, wand, occult, etc.  When we talked about the word magic, I asked the kids how stage magicians did their tricks.  Most of them knew there was trickery involved.  Several of them mentioned watching that "Secrets of Magic Revealed" TV show that demonstrates how magicians do some of the more famous tricks.  And I showed them a couple of card tricks a friend taught me.  They're rather impressive, until you know how they're actually done...then anyone can do 'em.  (I had to promise my homeroom that I wouldn't reveal any of the card trick secrets to any of the other seventh-grade classes.) 

And then LaShandra piped up:  "You know, Mr. Gardner, not all magic tricks are fake now.  My great uncle does this trick where you give him a dollar...he'll put it in this magic wallet he got...and when he gives it back to you, he's done turned that dollar into a five dollar bill!"

I chuckled, imagining how much fun he must have "amazing" his nieces and nephews like that, and told her, "Now, LaShandra, you know exactly what he's got to be doing.  His 'magic wallet' probably has a little secret pocket somewhere, and he's just inserting your dollar in there and pulling out a five dollar bill that he had hidden in there earlier to give to you." 

"Oh, no, Mr. Gardner!" LaShandra insisted.  "He's doing magic!  He'll do it all day long for you!"

"Aw, come on, LaShandra, you're smarter than that!" I tried to explain.  "Just think about it for a minute.  If he could really do magic like that, then he would just sit down one weekend turning dollar bills into fives and be just as rich as he could be."

"Oh, he's already rich, Mr. Gardner," she insisted.  "He used to work for the railroad, and he's got plenty of money.  He eats out every day and buys a new car every three years."

"Well, LaShandra" I said (beginning to realize I wasn't going to win this argument), "Even if he's got a good retirement pension, he could still be a multimillionaire.  All he'd have to do is take a dollar bill, turn it into a five dollar bill, take that five to the bank and get five ones..."

LaShandra stopped me right there.  "Oh, they won't let him come in the bank no more, Mr. Gardner.  He try to go in the bank, they just meet him right there at door.  Tell him to go on home and not come back."

I just let it drop.  What else could I do?

Cheering for Homer

When I was a freshman in high school, there was a senior named Jason on the basketball team.  I had played football with him earlier in the year, so I knew Jason a little.  I was one of only two freshman who had made the varsity, and he was one of the few seniors who went out of his way to be nice to us and make us feel welcome.
 
I wish I could say that I showed my appreciation by being nice to him in return, but I'm ashamed to say that I didn't.  Instead, I'd go to the basketball games with several of my friends and...whenever Jason did anything at all, good or bad...we'd cheer to beat all hell.  And it wasn't that enthusiastic way that you cheer for your team in high school, when winning seems the most important thing in the world.  It was that phony, sarcastic cheering.  Basically, we were just taunting a guy who deserved better.
 
Jason, you see, stood about six-two and had bright red hair that never could stay combed.  He had a round, moon-pie face filled with freckles, and had ears that looked like they belonged on a head about four hat sizes larger.  He had practically no neck to speak of, just a series of chins that sort of melted into his chest, and he always had a stubble because you can't shave a face like that.  He was homely...not cute-homely like some people...but HOMELY, and there was no way to dance around it.  He looked like some grotesque Opie Taylor gone to seed.
 
And about that time in Augusta (the nearest city of any size), there was an independent TV station desperate for inexpensive programming.  So it was running a series of old sit-coms:  The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Gilligan's Island, etc.  And along with these old shows, it also broadcast a few old-time commercials, including a corn-flake commercial that featured a country music comedy duo called "Homer & Jethro".  (If you've ever sung that old Boys of Camp Kookamonga song at summer camp, you should know that Homer & Jethro were the ones who originally recorded it.)   And be damned if the "Homer" of that pair didn't look almost EXACTLY like Jason.  (In the facial features, at least...there's no way his ears could compete.)  

So Jason became "Homer" for us.  We'd scream for him and beg the coach to "Put Homer in!"  I'm sure Coach Hemphill, always a bit daft, had no idea what was going on.  Pretty soon we had the whole freshman class in on it, and whenever Jason came into a game, we would explode.  We screamed and hollered: "Let HOMER shoot! Let HOMER shoot! "  It's a wonder the team won a single game that season.
 
Through it all, Jason remained a pretty good player.  He always hustled.  Any time there was a loose ball, he'd dive on the floor after it, getting a lot of bruises and scraping his knees.  By the end of a hard game, the color of his kneecaps would almost match his hair.  

I remember one night he scored 18 points, and led our school to a victory over a team that...frankly...was a lot better then we were.  And in the very next game, he only scored three points.  But we again beat a better team, and Coach Hemphill cited Jason in the local newsweekly writeup as Player of the Game because of all the little unselfish and unheralded things he did to help the team win.  It took Hom...uh...Jason about half the season to realize what was going on, and I'm not sure what he thought about it.  He never asked, and probably figured it had something to do with The Simpsons.  By the end of the season, he'd just wave and flash that little sheepish grin whenever we cheered.  Then he'd go out and play as hard as he could.
 
When Jason graduated, he attended a small junior college in Tennessee on a football scholarship.  He went for two years, then came back to our little hometown.  He worked for a heating and air conditioning contractor in Augusta for a couple of years, and then started his own business.  He married a classmate of mine, a girl named Vicky, who was always quiet and nice.  She wasn't overly popular, because she was a little shy.  She was never a cheerleader or class officer, but she was always liked and respected.  Like a lot of girls who go through school under the radar, by the time she was a senior she had grown into an absolute beauty...and we guys all wondered "When did that happen?"  

After she graduated, Vicky married Jason and went to work at a local bank.  She's done well there, I think.  It's a small town, and everyone knows everybody else and what they're like and what they do.  And people like the idea that somebody somber and serious like Vicky is helping look after their money.
 
Jason's business has done well, too.  He gets his share of the heating and air conditioning business in and around our hometown, and even gets some in Augusta as well.  When he does a job, he's careful and thorough.  He's got people working for him now, but he always visits the job sites from time to time just to make sure that everything is being done correctly and on time.  He gets a lot of repeat business, and good word-of-mouth recommendations.  When my parents bought the last house they ever lived in, he's the person my father hired to replace the heat pump...even though he was not the lowest bidder.
 
I got to know Jason pretty well over the years.  He and I played a lot of basketball together, both in pickup games and in summer leagues.  We often guarded each other.  Even when I was a senior in high school and in the best shape of my life, he still played me tough, especially on defense.  I could out-jump and out-muscle him, but never could out-hustle him.  And that was rare for me, because I was scrappy and had a lot of grit in my garter, too.
 
The last time I saw him was this past Thanksgiving.  I went back to my hometown to see some friends, and learned that the old crowd was going to play a few pickup games at the gym one night.  I went and played a couple of games, and it was fun...though I could tell I hadn't played basketball in a while.  I jump just as hard as I ever did, but don't get quite as high off the ground as I used to.  I figure that gravity has somehow gotten a lot stronger than it was when I was eighteen.  (My teammates had a different theory about that, but it's too ridiculous to mention.)
 
After my last game, I sat in the bleachers with Jason, cooling off and chatting a while, just to catch up.  He and Vicky have two little girls now, and...naturally...he had to show me pictures.  Their youngest is absolutely beautiful, looks so much like her mother.  And the oldest, bless her heart, looks just like Jason, though (thankfully) with regular ears.  You could hear the pride in his voice as he told me all about his daughters.  The oldest looks just like him, but in personality is exactly like Vicky...while the youngest looks like Vicky, but has his temper.  He told me how the older one took a fly swatter and beat down every ant hill in the yard because a fire ant bit her sister...and how the youngest ate half the candy eggs in her sister's Easter basket, and put real eggs from the refrigerator in there, hoping she wouldn't notice.  Then he said, "It's funny how you just KNOW that the little silly things like that will be the things you'll always look back on and remember most."
 
I had to go, so we shook hands and I left.  Walking out the door, I turned back around just to take in my old high school gym once more, and get a final glimpse at the hard-core players squeezing in that one last game.  And I saw that Jason was still sitting there in the bleachers, lost in his own little world...smiling at those pictures of his two little girls and chuckling quietly to himself

Looking back, I sure am ashamed of the way we used to mock-cheer for Jason, calling him "Homer" in such a juvenile, ridiculous manner.
 
But I sure am glad we picked him to cheer for.

Boyhood hero...

The first time I ever heard of Dr. Walter Jonas Judah, I was in junior high and was working through one of those "learn at your own pace" reading laboratories. That's basically a big box of stories with accompanying questionnaires. A student checks out a story, reads it, and then fills out the questionnaire for the teacher to grade. Dr. Judah was the subject of one of those stories, and he has been a hero of mine ever since I first read about him. (And his mother Jesse as well, quite frankly.)

Walter was born in 1778 in New York City into rather humble circumstances.  (NOTE:  I had to look up some of these specific dates.)  His father, Samuel, was the native-born son of German immigrants.  Samuel died when Walter was only three, leaving Walter's mother Jesse with twelve children to raise as a single parent. After a suitable period of mourning, Jesse received three marriage proposals: one from a widower about her own age, one from a widower several years older, and one from a man her own age who had never been married. These were honorable proposals from three decent and respected men. So Jesse thanked them all politely, and then turned each one down. Though her marriage to Samuel had been arranged by a matchmaker, they had grown to love each other deeply, and Jesse never remarried.

Jesse Judah was hard-working and very resourceful. At first, she provided for her family by doing any type of work she could find. She washed, ironed clothes, kept children, cooked, and cleaned for people. All her children were expected to either find paying jobs, or to work at home helping their mother. They lived very frugally, and eventually were able to start saving money.

Soon, Jesse began investing the family's savings. She initially invested in various types of small businesses...butcher shops, general stores, bakeries...and the investment often included the use of a child, as well. This provided a multiple benefit. It gave the business a free worker, which helped ensure success and the repayment of her loan. It also enabled some of her children to learn valuable skills. One of her sons became a butcher, two others opened their own bakeries, and two daughters opened a small dry goods store together. And it also gave Jesse an excuse to visit the business during the day.

In that day and time, very few men would allow a woman to come and monitor their work...even a woman from whom they had borrowed business capital. But no one could prevent a mother from bringing a lunch to her child, which gave her an opportunity to observe. Jesse was an intelligent woman, and occasionally offered suggestions. If the male businessman refused to listen (as many did), then...when the loan came due...she simply accepted repayment, without extending any further credit. Other businessmen thought over her suggestions, and realized that they made good business sense.  For those who decided to follow Jesse's recommendations, they generally wound up earning increased profits. 

Jesse and the entire family continued to work hard and live frugally, and soon she began investing in real estate. She was quite successful, and became fairly well-to-do. (I'm certainly not a scholar of colonial-era business, but I would think it very unusual for a woman to become a successful investment speculator during that time period.)

When Walter was sixteen, he enrolled at King's College, which is now Columbia University. It was a little unusual for a Jewish student to attend college in colonial America, since most colleges had been founded primarily to train Christian clergymen. But it was certainly not unheard of, since education has always been encouraged and highly valued in Jewish culture.  Thanks to the work ethic instilled in him by his mother, Walter was an outstanding student. Only a year later he enrolled in the college's medical school. 

The medical school at King's College is one of the oldest in the nation, and...based on sources I have read...Walter Judah was the first native-born Jewish student to attend a medical school in this country. Medical education was rather primitive during the colonial era, and most doctors actually learned through an "on the job" apprenticeship with an established doctor. And these established doctors usually followed another profession as well, such as being a barber.

During the summer of 1798, an epidemic of yellow fever broke out in New York. This was a fairly regular occurrence in urban areas until the invention of modern sewer systems. Yellow fever is spread through mosquito bites, and mosquitoes breed best in stagnant water. Even with the modern medicines of today there is no known yellow fever cure. The disease usually lasts from one to two weeks. It is very painful, and even today is fatal about half the time.

When the New York epidemic began, just about anyone who could afford to left the city for cooler, drier places. Walter could easily have found refuge. His family fled to Baltimore, where they moved next to Walter's older sister and her husband. But even though he was only a third-year medical student, Walter stayed in the city to help treat sufferers. 

Walter worked tirelessly for days, treating the afflicted and recommending treatments and medications. He taught other volunteers how to provide basic medical care, and he even spent his own money to pay for medicines that were believed to help. During that September, around 40 people a day died from the disease. Due to his continuous exposure to the disease, and because of his weakened physical state from sheer exhaustion, Dr. Judah contracted yellow fever himself. Even during his illness he continued to treat others, and to instruct other volunteers until he was completely bedridden. He died on September 15 at the young age of twenty. He is buried in the Chatham Square Cemetery of Congregation Shearith Israel, the oldest synagogue in the United States.   His tombstone contains a tribute noting that he fell "a victim to the cause of humanity."  There is a street in lower Manhattan named in his honor.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should state that...because Walter Jonas Judah was only a third-year medical student when he died and had not completed the full medical course of study...he is technically not entitled to be referred to using the "Doctor" honorific. And I do not pretend to have the right to bestow titles on behalf of Columbia University.  Nonetheless, I feel he is worthy of the honor...and whenever I think of him, speak of him, or write about him, he is always (to me) Doctor Judah.