My third grade year in Boonville was by far the most memorable of all three of the years that I lived there with my family, due, in large part, to my teacher, Miss Donna Wright. What was most distinctive about her, apart from any of my other elementary school teachers, was that she was young, attractive, and single — and she treated me as an individual, totally separate from my family dynamic. It didn’t matter to her that my mother was a colleague or that my father was her minister — what was significant was that, along with all of her other students, she valued me for my own unique contributions to the classroom environment. Staunchly believing in the principle that “what happens in Miss Wright’s class stays in Miss Wright’s class,” she established a firm precedent that inspired me to develop the same philosophy for the two years that I taught 5th grade in the mid-90’s (most of my teaching was with Severely Handicapped students).
It would be an understatement to suggest that I completely thrived in this environment — to the extent that I volunteered for after-school duties, such as cleaning erasers. This was the era of blackboards (many of which were actually sort of a murky green in color) on which teachers wrote with white or yellow chalk, unlike the white-boards of the future with erasable markers in a variety of colors, or the most current incarnation — displays with computer applications that directly feed into personal, indivi-dual monitors, so that everything that the teacher generates is immediately accessible to the student. In 1958, the chalkboard erasers, over time, would accumulate so much chalk residue that they would periodically need to be slammed into each other to release the powder into the atmosphere. I guess my proclivity for this particular task was a precursor to my switching from playing piano (which, in its purest sense, is also percussive, with the little hammers slamming into the strings with each note that is played) to playing percussion instruments toward the end of my 6th grade year.
One of the assignments that we were given during that year was to present an oral report to the class on some aspect of Anderson Valley culture and heritage, in addition to handing in a written report on the topic to Miss Wright. When presented with the assignment, I immediately volunteered to do my report on Boontling, Boonville’s unique and (apparently) still-thriving language/dialect specific to the Anderson Valley. My parents assisted me with my research (printed media only, of course, since the Internet did not yet exist), and I was quite fascinated to learn the motivation and roots of this extremely unusual system of written and verbal communication. Looking back on it now, it reminds me a great deal of the rationale behind the plotline of the Lerner and Loewe musical Brigadoon — a means by which the townfolk could create a “miracle” which would keep their tiny hamlet from being adversely affected by outside influences. Even though the town of Boonville does not physically disappear and reappear once every century, it seems that some of the intent of the “miracle” has been largely effective.
Since this was my mother’s second year of teaching 3rd grade, she had thoroughly familiarized herself with the curriculum and the anticipated academic and scholastic outcomes for grade-level proficiency. I can only assume that this was the primary motivation for the birthday gift that my parents gave me at the beginning of the school year — a rectangular green plastic pencil box, approximately 3” by 6” in diameter, which had, imbedded into the flip-top lid, two white plastic wheels with interlocking spokes, and a small cutout rectangle over each, revealing each of the states and its corresponding capital. When one would turn the wheel on either side of the pencil box, the state and capital would change, but each correspondence was permanently determined.
When the day arrived for the required test on the states and capitals (which my mother knew beforehand was coming, and hence had prepared me to the best of her ability), I racked my brain to retrieve the necessary information from all of the cramming I had done at home the week before. Still coming up short, I remembered my pencil box stashed safely away inside my desk, and, when Miss Wright was not looking directly at me, I would open my desk and rotate the white plastic wheels, revealing the answers. Finally, she figured out what was going on and approached me, asking me what I was doing and why I needed to continue rummaging through my desk. That was the first — and only — time I ever told a lie in my entire life. I told her that my pencil lead kept breaking, and I needed to keep sharpening it. She let it go, assuming that I had learned my lesson, and would not repeat the same mistake again. She was (W)right.
I suppose that this was also the year that I began to develop my keen interest in acting, as I vaguely recall holiday pageants at the church in which I was cast in some supporting role. Apart from these, and the skits that my brother and I improvised, any incidences of public performance during that year were focused on piano recitals, in which I was a willing, if not overly enthusiastic, participant. It wasn’t until my 4th grade year, after leaving Boonville for Dixon, that my interest in theatre truly blossomed, largely through my being cast in the leading female role, as Mrs. James Marshall, wife of the employee of Capt. John Sutter to whom is attributed the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill. I’m sure that if any similar opportunities had presented themselves during my 3rd grade year, I would have done anything I could to take advantage of them. ¥¥
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