SCHOOL BELLS
by Elmer Kerr
Across the whole land school doors are swinging open, heralding the beginning of another year of school. In every city, town and hamlet there will be a few who will hesitate and wonder if an education, even a high school education, is necessary or worthwhile. For them I am writing this story—Jim's story, I could call it, or it could be my story or a dozen others I could name, who, like Jim, thought an education was not necessary.
The story came about while my wife And I were on our way to visit our son and his family, who live near the coast in the North West part of the country. We had been traveling for eight or ten hours through the late August heat, and were hot, sweaty, and uncomfortable, when an hour or so before sundown we came to what looked like the most wonderfully tempting place in the world -a not-to-large motel nestling in the shadow of several large box elder trees. Rows of golden colored marigolds lined the paths, and beds of brightly colored petunias nestled in the center of neatly trimmed lawns which fronted the cabins. A vacancy sign bade us welcome, and after heading the hot, dusty car into its parking stall, we entered the office and registered for the night.
The room they gave us was stifling hot from the midday heat. Luckily the room was air conditioned; we'd take a cool shower and, while the room was cooling off, we could sit In the shade of the trees for an hour or so, then have our super and if we'd get in bed fairly early, we'd get an early start in the morning and get to our son's place before it got too hot.
After showering, we donned loose, light clothes then strolled out to where a big patch oz shade stretched across the. grass. Two large lounge chairs stood waiting, and after adjusting the right angle, we stretched out, face up, and glad to be off the freeway withers steady stream of cars whizzing by, and the noisy semis climbing the grades and racing down. the other sides, emitting clouds of vile smelling smoke and a volume of ear-splitting. noise as the drivers shifted the gears.
I had already noticed that another person, a man, lay stretched out in another chair, some dozen or so feet away. He was holding a paper above his face while he read, and all I could see of him was a patch of gray-white hair showing above the paper. If he knew we were there, he paid us no, heed. I'll just call him, Jim, because I never did learn his real name, and he never bothered to ask me mine. I supposes because he thought it was pointless as we would very likely never see each other again, after today.
I had been lying there maybe ten or fifteen minutes, enjoying the cool breeze, and was half asleep, when he must have read something to disturb him or make him angry. The sudden, noisy, crumpling of his newspaper and his angry, vindictive voice yanked me rudely from half-way sleep. he jerked himself to a sitting position, thrust the paper towards me, then pointing with a rather long, bony forefinger at a picture exclaimed in a voice filled with disgust and contempt, “Look at that!” I sat up so I could see what it was all about, as he continued, “Those stupid, sloven, slouchy kids sitting there on the school house steps; their hair and whiskers almost touching their knees, demanding this and demanding that, like what they have isn’t good enough. The fools! Nobody ever had it better than they have, someone should drown the whole bunch of them and let the kids who want to learn go to school.” I wasn’t up on school problems as well as I should have been, but I had heard a few things too, so in reply to his outburst I said, “Don’t you think the kids have a point to make? I’ve heard of teachers and professors who sit around teaching the same old stuff and using the same old outdated notes they did ten or twenty years ago, and are so strongly entrenched behind a school union that nobody seems able to fire them or do anything about it. Don’t you think the schools have slipped about as far behind as the kids have jumped ahead? Maybe the schools need to do a little changing.“
Jim, still angry, leaned forward and almost glared at me as he continued, “Why should the schools change? The A B Cs haven’t changed, arithmetic hasn’t changed—two times two is still four,. four times four still equals sixteen, like it always did. The English language hasn’t changed—the words are just the same, only hippies like these,” pointing his bony finger again at the picture, “have added a few and given some a dirty meaning to express their dirty thoughts.” His finger jabbed at the picture again, and he spat the words out like they had a bad taste. “Look at them–half of them girls–girls once dainty and decent, and look at them now–dressed in dirt and rags, sharing their dope and their beds with anyone–their brains addled and their virtue and decency thrown away.” I tried to say something but I didn’t have a chance, as rattling the paper in his hand, he carried on. “This stuff is agitated and egged on by a few ring-leaders who are paid by the commies. It makes me sick. The politicians are bankrupting the country fighting them half a world away, while right here, under their very noses, they are trying to ruin our school system and destroy the morals of our youth.” He tossed the paper away like he thought the filth might rub off on his hands,. and looking me straight in the eyes he added as a clincher to his argument, “Mister, I don’t know how smart you are, but I know how dumb I am,. just because I wasted and fooled my time away; just like those fool kids are doing.” Again pointing that long finger at the picture.
He picked up a light coat lying on the grass, then fumbled a pipe and a pouch of tobacco from an inside pocket, then filling the bowl with the loose tobacco, forgetting to tamp it down, he tried three or four matches getting it lit, and after a couple of weak puffs it went out. He gazed at it a second or two in disgust, then remarked, “My wife insists that I learn to smoke the fool thing. She says it is not so apt to give me cancer.” Laying the pipe and tobacco on the grass beside his chair and glancing, a little furtively, toward one of the cabins, he turned to me and asked, “Do you happen to have a cigarette?” I told him no, I’d quit them years ago. He seemed to be real nervous and edgy, and I thought he might wander off some place to find a smoke. I didn’t want him to leave; I was pretty sure he had a story he could tell me, and I wanted to hear it.
To get his mind off the cigarette and talking again, I said, “You seem to think an education is quite necessary,” then nodding towards a new, expensive car, which I guessed belonged to him I said, “Yet, in spite of your dumbness, as you say, you seem to have done pretty well,” He gave me an intense look and regret and self blame seemed to edge his words, as he plunged ahead with his argument for higher education. “Mister,” he never asked my name, just continued to call me, ‘Mister,’ and I guess that was as good as me calling him, ‘Jim.’ “Mister,” he said, “I’m seventy five years old, and I’ve done all right as you say; I have everything Mother and I will need for the few years we have left, but, do you know what?” he paused and I shook my head, no, then he continued, “Maybe you won’t believe it, but the good Lord have me a wonderful gift, a talent. I didn’t work and earn it. He gave it to me.” He paused, and with a slight nod I bade him to go on. “That’s right,” he said, “a great talent. I didn’t appreciate it when I was young, but I do now.” He paused like he wanted me to guess, and I ventured, “A painter, maybe?” He shook his head and said, “A writer, I have a knack of putting words together to well and interesting story, or to make rhyme and give them poetic rhythm.” A smile spread over his face as he continued, “Once in a while I meet an old school mate who is still alive, and she’ll swear that she has a little verse I wrote for her, that long, long time ago, tucked away in her treasure chest or antique box.”
He reached down and picked up the pipe and tobacco pouch, and repeated the ritual of refilling it, then wasted the three or four matches trying vainly to light it again. Then eyeing it balefully for a second or two, fully disgusted, he tossed it into a nearby trash can, at the same time muttering, “All the blasted thing is good for when it does work is to burn my tongue.” The he said again, “You haven’t a cigarette, have you?” I shook my head then he remembered, “Oh yes, you said you had quit, guess I’ll have to quit, too.” I wanted to hear the rest of his story, so I asked “what about the poems and the stories?” “Oh that,” he said like he wasn’t to anxious to talk about it. He stood up and walked over to the trash can and fished his pipe out from the empty beer cans and paper cups, and after looking at it for a second or two, he threw it back into the can. I felt sure he would now wonder off in search of someone who might have a cigarette, but he didn’t.
He walked back and sat down on the edge of his chair, then gazing at me with a most serious and thoughtful look on his face he said, “You know, it’s almost a crime to waste a gift the Lord has given to one, and that’s what I’ve done.” He paused for a second and I said, “How come?” then he continued, calling me, Mister, again, “Well Mister, he said “maybe you won’t believe it, but even now, after all those years, thoughts—serious thoughts, funny and humorous thoughts, or just plain every day thoughts come crowding and tumbling into my mind wanting to be written down, but it’s a slow, nerve wracking job to write them down.” I asked the usual question, “Why?” He wagged that long, bony finger at me again, his feelings so strong, and he seemed so worked up that I think if my wife had not been there he’d have probably uttered a few swear words; he did slip in some pretty strong slang as he said, “Because I was just too blasted, cockeyed lazy and careless to get an education.” He sat for a while like he didn’t think too much of himself, then I said, “I suppose you were what they, now days, call a drop out?” He shook his head as he answered, “Not exactly, more like a drop-in.” Noting my surprised look, he went on to explain, “I dropped in just often enough to stay eligible to take part in the athletic program. I had quick hands, fast feet, good legs and fast reflexes. I was a natural for football and better than average at basketball, so along with half a doze others, I was a high school hero.” He paused and I said, “Sounds great. I’d like that.” A smile played over his face, and he seemed to slip back to those carefree days–fifty–sixty years ago. “It was kind of fun, I’ll admit,” he said, “to sort of have your pick of all the pretty girls, and to have one hanging onto your arm most of the time, and there were always one or two or three ready and willing to help out by slyly slipping me solutions to problems or answers to questions, particularly at tests time, so I could keep my grad well above the failing, F. I salved my some-times bothersome conscience by telling myself–‘they’re all doing it.’ It was fun all right being a tin hero and a ‘Don Juan’ to the girls. So I went blissfully along having a fine time and learning very little. I didn’t worry about it, though,” Jim went on, “my dad had a couple of good farms, and I being the only on in the family, they would both be mine someday, and one didn’t need much learning to raise crops and milk cows. I didn’t realize until years later what a heavy price I’d paid to be a hero for a short time.” He paused and I was afraid he might go in search of a cigarette, but seconds later a broad smile crossed his face as he continued his story.
“The clicking of a typewriter always fascinated me,” he said, “and to watch someone’s fingers racing over the keys, pounding out fifty or sixty words a minute never failed to give me a thrill. The school had two machines for student practice; that is all it could afford with the early day budget. These were located in a room off to itself, so the clattering keys wouldn’t disturb the other students, and so the other students wouldn’t disturb the typing students.” He seemed so wrapped up in his dreaming of the past, that had I stood up and walked away, I hardly think he would have missed me, and he seemed to have forgotten all about a cigarette. He continued, “At the beginning of the fourth and last year, I decided to master the exciting art, so I enrolled for the course. When I went to the room for my first lesson I was overjoyed to learn that for my hour of practicing I was paired off with the cutest little, Hero Worshipper, in the school! She had soft brown eyes and rosy, chubby cheeks–her hair was fine and curly, almost jet black and always smelled so nice. She was a doll; and I was sure the class would be mighty interesting. On about the second or third day I pulled our desks up close enough so we could touch hands once in a while, and before many days had passed we were spending most of our practicing time bandying words and making love, and as usual, cheating a little to get by.” I said I thought that would be great, but I don’t think he even heard me. He sat for a second or two dreaming, his thoughts buried in the past, then a little cloud crossed his face as he continued.
“I didn’t realize I had lost so much until I sold the farms and retired a few years ago. To help pass the time and to satisfy a sort of longing or desire, I decided to try my hand at writing. Maybe I could write something good enough to sell or to keep for future posterity, so I bought paper, pens, and a big eraser in case I got something wrong now and again and would have to erase it. I bought me an electric typewriter too, one just as well have the best, but I’d write it first with a pen or pencil, then type it out. I had been plotting a cute little story in my mind for the past two or three days, and now I was sitting at my desk ready to put it on paper, only to learn that although the thoughts and words came tumbling and racing into my mind, I didn’t know how to put them on paper, how to start a sentence and where should it end? The same with paragraphs, and the many little marks—the comma, the semicolon, the dots and the dashes and all the others. How does one know where to put them, and I never dreamed there were so many ways to spell words wrong. My wife wasn’t much help either. If I’d ask her how to spell a word, she would spell it, then say “I think that’s right, but I’m not sure.” and even if it were right I’d have to look it up to make sure. My brand new dictionary soon became dog-eared and showed signs of being the most used book in the house.” He paused and started to feel through his pockets for a cigarette, then he started to ask me the same question, but remembered. I didn’t worry about his leaving, because he was so interested in his own story that I felt sure he would stay and finish it.