Becky, the fire alarm, and the coyote

As I was reminiscing about my teaching years I was reminded of another story that concerned Becky. As I said Becky and I were attached at the hip for the year she attended the school where I taught. Where ever I went, she went and I typically held her hand to keep control of her. One day during lunch we were returning from the cafeteria to my room. I was holding Becky’s hand but she began to lead me, I was somewhat distracted and just followed her as she walked across the hall and pulled the fire alarm on the wall. As the alarms began to ring through the halls I was shocked because my whole reason of holding her hand was to avoid things like this and she did right under my nose with me attached to her!!

 The fire alarm going off caused mass confusion and chaos because it was lunch time!! Fire drills don’t happen during lunch!! This offense warranted a trip to the principal’s office and Becky was really scared. When we I got there I learned he was very upset with both of us!! At first he asked me how she got away from me to do this and then I had to confess I was holding her hand when it happened. He looked at me incredulously, shook his head and moved on to Becky. As he tried to talk with Becky he got increasingly more frustrated because Becky was special and regular discipline did not work with her. Lecturing her went nowhere; she was just being typical Becky pacing his office while flapping her arms and making nonsense noises. I thought about telling him to try the hominy behavior modification plan (to lighten the mood ) but he was much too upset with both of us so I thought it was best to refrain and keep silent. Finally in desperation he threw his arms up and said “Mrs. Washington just take her for awhile , go drive around or something” I looked at him as if he was crazy and asked “Take her for a ride? In my car ?!!!!“ Where I had taught before you NEVER took a student for a ride in your car, but as I said this was a different world and much of the time I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. He looked at me sternly and said “Yes take her for a ride, I NEED A BREAK”. “YOU NEED A BREAK!!! IF ANYONE NEEDS A BREAK I DO” is what I wanted to say but I decided to keep quiet and do as I was told.

 Becky and I stood up and I grabbed her hand, which was now second nature to me, and we left. As I was walking down the hall to leave the building I remained focused and on my toes to make sure nothing happened on my watch again. Becky and I got into my green Mazda 626 and I began to feel better. It was my new car and I was so proud of it. It was the nicest car I had ever owned and I loved everything about it : the sunroof, the color , and the tan leather seats.

 Thankfully by this time I knew my way around this one horse town. As I said I had never been in a town so small, my sister lived in Panhandle TX and I thought that was small until I came here. The first year as Special Education Coordinator I made a home visit to have a parent sign some important paper work because after several attempts the papers were never returned. She did not have transportation and it was imperative we had the student’s folder in order. I finally called and asked her if I could come by and have her sign the papers. She agreed. As I left that day to drive to her home I asked for directions , everyone in the office seemed to know where they lived. I was expecting regular driving directions like we get today on a GPS or MapQuest or directions I would have gotten in Dallas or Amarillo . That is what I expected but this is what I got , everyone in the office helped with the directions (remember I was in the Twilight Zone ) : ‘ take the oil top road behind the school and drive until you go by the Miller’s pasture, there is a black and white cow that is usually by the fence and an old barn that used to be red, you will then see a gravel road and take a right , keep on driving past the Jones’s double wide, you will know it is theirs because there will be goats in the front yard . Take a left on the next oil top road and you will see the Anderson’s home , it sets back off the road but there is a huge oak tree in front with a tire swing.’

I felt more lost than before and had to ask the definition of an oil top road and doublewide!! Needless to say I had to drive back to the school after about a half an hour of getting lost and have someone drive me. I was thankful being a bus driver wasn’t one of my duties; I didn’t know how the bus drivers drove their routes.

 But by my 2nd year at the district I could drive those country roads without getting lost. So Becky and I set off. She was not very happy about this arrangement and I really didn’t care. I buckled her in the back seat and began to drive; ever so often I would glance at Becky in my rear view mirror. She was muttering under her breath and calling me a bitch as usual. I just ignored her and listened to my Smash Mouth cassette. Ignoring her seemed to make her madder and she looked at my eyes in the mirror and said “ I am going to jump out of this car you *%$^* bitch”. This concerned me somewhat because I didn’t know if I had child safety locks on my doors. But I had learned some valuable information and information is power. The information I had obtained from her foster home was Becky not only feared hominy but she was deathly scared of coyotes too. So as she repeated her threat of jumping out of my car while trying to unbuckle her seatbelt I looked at her in the rear view mirror and said “Go ahead but if you do a coyote is going to get you!! “ Her eyes got as big as saucers and she gave me the same look she did the first time I put the hominy on my desk and muttered “Bitch” then settled back in the seat. Best of all she didn’t threaten to jump out again. And then in a blink of an eye as if nothing had happened she said “I love you Mrs. Washington” and I knew the episode had passed. She then asked if we could listen to “Walking on the Sun” by Smash Mouth. It was her favorite song so I turned it on . We drove down those country roads with the windows down and my sun roof opened singing at the top of our lungs, then we went back to school.

 There were other times that I had to take Becky for a drive to deescalate some situations and even one time we went with the principal in his car and listened to Tom Petty’s Greatest Hits. That is just the way it was there, it was a different world.