Happy Birthday, Conscience

We all have them. As we take this journey through life, there are those individuals along the way who keep us honest. They unwittingly drive us to achieve beyond even our own desires. Their faces pop up in our minds whenever we consider the consequences of actions we may take or actions taken. These people come into our lives at different times, from different places, for different reasons. I really don't think they consciously sign on to rule others with such power.

Maybe we ourselves subconsciously select them for this position as the rudders of our lives. I like to think of them as major players in that force within us called "Conscience." Their presence exudes a unique combination of fear, respect, example, influence and high level standards to which we respond.

My parents have and continue to do their time in this role, even my dad from his grave. My friend Joy O'Donnell served that role. I learned through a few experiences to avoid igniting the ire of my longtime teaching colleague, for I knew there'd be no "joy" in what came next. Some bosses along the way have also played influential roles in forming my conscience, but none more prominent than Mr. Richard Sodorff, who turned 85 today.

Mention the name "Dick Sodorff," and my first thought always goes to the Lincoln School playground on a spring day back in the mid1950s. The elementary classes gather round a metal pole extending from a car tire and rim toward the sky. From its top drops a nylon rope holding a volleyball.

A tall man with black hair stands with the other adults. Our principal Mrs. Ekholm introduces him as Mr. Sodorff. He's the principal at Washington School, and he has come to teach us how to play tetherball.

From that day forth, the tetherball remained a fixture for playground competition at Lincoln Elementary, and from that day, Mr. Sodorff remained a fixture in my mind. As I progressed from Lincoln to the junior high, he progressed through the school district administrative ranks also. By the time, I reached Sandpoint High School, he had been there for about three years, serving as principal. I don't recall a lot of encounters with him during my high school tenure.

I actually knew his wife Claire better during those years because, in addition to serving as Girls' Counselor, she taught accelerated junior English. Apparently, I was accelerated because I sat in her class. That class, by the way, offered one of the most valuable educational resources I've ever encountered: Word Clues, the study of Latin and Greek roots. It has carried me throughout my life.

During my senior year, I was talkative in our sixth-period American government class. Our teacher was inept. The game in class each sixth hour, among many, was to count how many times the teacher said, "All right, Marianne, be quiet." Sometimes that total would exceed a dozen---within 15 minutes. One day, the teacher kicked me out. I gladly obliged and got up to leave.

He then thought twice because he knew I was an office girl, and that I probably talked as much in the office as I did in his class. After that second thought, he tried to coerce me back to my seat, even grabbing my arm and leading me there as I continued to insist that I really wanted to go to the office to tell the principal how chaotic our class was. The teacher won that battle, but it wasn't long before he was replaced by a respected disciplinarian and wonderful teacher, Mr. Anderson.

I think Mr. Sodorff knew that something had to change in that government class, and he didn't need me to tell him. For the rest of the year, we actually learned government and behaved. At the end of the year, my principal wrote in my yearbook that "every class needed a whip, and that I had served that function." Little did he know that he had been and would continue to serve as one of my whips.

Later, during my University of Idaho experience, I came back home to Sandpoint to do my student teaching. At the end of my experience, Mr. Sodorff asked me if I'd be interested in replacing a retiring English teacher, Mrs. Ruby Phelps, who also advised the yearbook. Coming off a mediocre college experience followed a phenomenal student teaching stint with Mr. Ragner Benson, I was thrilled beyond belief. The last person in the world that I ever wanted to disappoint was Mr. Sodorff.

While teaching at Sandpoint High School, I was reluctant to call my former principal and new boss anything but Mr. Sodorff. Eventually, however, it became more comfortable to refer to him on a first-name basis. It never became comfortable, though, to do anything less than my best in this man's eyes. I failed at that once or twice and have chronicled one giant messy failure in the first story of my new book Lessons with Love. It's called "Ponderettes and Pie--Not a Good Mix."

The story captures the ultimate example of the best laid plans of pie-eating and high school kids. Pie-eating was definitely misnomer in this story. Very little got eaten, save for the nine pies consumed by David Jones for the top prize. Most of the cream pie landed not in student stomachs but on the sacred walls and floors of the Sandpoint High School gymnasium. And some almost landed on my "Conscience." Not a pretty scene and not a pretty scenario for a young teacher who thought she'd planned for everything.

From 1969 to the early 1980s, Dick Sodorff continued his reign over my conscience. He and Claire became good friends and often served as confidantes whenever I was going through some of the valleys that often occur in a person's teaching career. When he retired, Dick never lost his love for Sandpoint High School. He later founded Sandpoint High Alumni and Friends for the purpose of raising scholarship money for high school seniors.

I see him from time to time, and, at almost 60, I still get a twinge of that sense that I'd better have all my ducks in line----or should I say pies! We all need people like such as this man in our lives. They subconsciously keep us on the straight and narrow. Mr. Richard Sodorff served as one of those in my life, and for that I salute him on this special milestone in his own life.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Sodorff, and may you enjoy a delicious piece of Cyrus O'Leary cream pie for your birthday celebration.

Note: If anyone else wishes to send him greetings, post them in the comments section, and Claire and I will see that he gets them.

Note: GO ZAGS!! Big game tonight against Stanford! 8 p.m. PST