my bespectacled father small for his age
youngest in his class stayed out a year
between high school and college and
worked on the farm that job didn’t last
for the married teacher in the one room
schoolhouse across the east twenty the
school my dad attended his first eight
years that teacher GASP got pregnant
and you can’t have a pregnant woman
teaching children can you? so the board
hired ron he liked diagramming sentences
he and the kids skated so long on the
crick during recess they’d all have to stay
late to finish their lessons then were late
for their home chores he loved to read
aloud eliose tells me (she was in first grade)
he’d finish a chapter of The Count of Monte
Christo his feet on the desk sigh chuckle
then say well let’s hear just one more and
read another chapter maybe the eighth
graders liked it but oh how I longed for
a single chapter of the Bobbsey Twins!
This article appears in Oct 6-12, 2016.
