“OK, who did that?” she’d exclaim, interrupting her lesson. No one, as far as I can remember, ever ‘fessed up. “We have restrooms in the back of the classroom. Please use them!” It’s my suspicion that she was actually getting a whiff of a backed-up septic tank.
At the front of the classroom, behind her desk, was a large — what we called in those days — blackboard. Above the board were two sizable portraits of Presidents Washington and Lincoln. Several weeks into the fall 1953 semester I discovered that, no matter where you sat or stood in the classroom, Washington and Lincoln appeared to be staring directly at you. It was eerie. Their eyes penetrated your soul.
Even when Mrs. Coxen wasn’t looking — or sniffing — the Father of our Country and the Great Emancipator made certain that I stuck to the straight and narrow.
Mrs. Coxen loved to have her students deliver memorized monologues in class. She favored me because I was an enthusiastic orator. I remember delivering a Pinocchio speech — outfitted with proboscis and lederhosen — and later reprising it for Back-to-School Night.
Mrs. Coxen picked me to play a Scandinavian Father Christmas for our 1953 holiday show. It was my job to walk across the stage in green tights and an itchy, spun-glass beard, lugging a sack of toys. I had no lines. We sang sacred hymns.
My fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Ballreich, yelled a lot. I remember once being sent to the principal’s office. The principal, Mr. Bruns, though intimidating, seemed ever so much kinder than my teacher.
One afternoon in 1955 we watched a light plane from Orange County Airport — whose engine was loud and sputtering — crash in a field several blocks east of the campus. We all ran beyond the blacktop to try to get a better view, though we were still several blocks from the site. Teachers showed us back to our classrooms.
