Hoodoo howdyadoo

I saw one of my students from yesteryear yesterday. Once again, 38 years after the fact, while visiting with him and his wife, I silently lamented that a different turn of events should have happened with my teacher-student relationship with him during his sophomore year of high school.

What a wonderful human being he turned out to be, and, of course, my English-teacher ear marveled once again as I listened to his flawless expression that an injustice had done to this young man because of a typical youthful indiscretion.

Basically, the kid flipped me off. I was attaching the attendance sheet to the nail on the Room 4 door at Sandpoint High School and happened to see his gesture out of the corner of my eye. I don't know what I had said to him to provoke "the finger," but his response was unacceptable and definitely grounds for immediate discipline.

"To the office!" I said. I was an inexperienced young teacher then, unaccustomed to handling such behavior in my own way. I learned over the years, however, and had this young man done the same thing later in my career, I would have given him the finger back----my index finger, that is----directing him to the door, following him and having an in-your-face "discussion." If my points in this hallway visit were satisfactorily taken, we would have both re-entered the room and moved on with class business.

Back in 1972, this young man obliged, headed out the door in a visible tiff, and never came back. They switched him to a basic English class, which is euphemistic for "bonehead." I was horrified. All he needed was a good talking to----not a demotion in brain potential. But then again, I was a young, inexperienced teacher who knew better than to question authority.

That changed with age too. Although I was considered a strict disciplinarian, a few of my efforts of going to bat for kids who had erred like any normal adolescent might do could be considered legendary to those who could hear my heated protests with administrators through the office walls. As I look over the outcome of those isolated cases, I'd do it again. The students in question hardly turned out to be derelicts---quite the opposite.

Anyway, to run into this young man---who was wronged academically in 1970---during my Sunday drive chance visit to the Vay Cafe aka Hoodoo Creek diner/store (good guess, it might be Hoodoo Falls) yesterday was a great pleasure, as it always is wherever I see him.

Over the years, I expressed to him my dismay at the discipline approach that was used, even though probably with the best intentions in mind. I'm sure the school administrators knew he was a little rough around the edges, and they wanted to spare me, the neophyte, any future classroom behavior problems. Nonetheless, he was a rough-around-the-edges country boy with eloquence and writing talent beyond his age.

He comes from a family of loggers/truck drivers, but that should not dictate a preconceived lack of sophistication in anyone's mind. I remember once hearing another local logger tell me how people were always amazed when he'd disclose that he attended almost every Festival at Sandpoint concert. He said, "I want to say back to them: am I supposed to be stupid because I'm a logger?"

No way. And, my student with the finger gesture from way back was a perfect example---typecast because of what the family did for a living. Inside that rough exterior was a brilliant poet. If I could use the language like he could, I'd be thrilled. I've always wondered what might have been had events turned differently for him. I know that had he stayed in my class, allowing me to view more of his written work, I'd be first in line to encourage him onward.

But I was young and dumb then, and he was young and brilliant but a smart-aleck to boot. So, life went on. He's very successful at what he knows. He has a wonderful wife and some phenomenal kids, and he expressed to me yesterday that, for him, life is good. Using two examples of friends with major medical problems who're his same age and six years younger respectively, he feels fortunate and very reflective about the bounties of his life.

So, who's to know what curves life throws to us and really if they're good or bad. I don't know that he would have been a happier person had he not flipped me off that day and instead moved on into literary circles rather than logging. And, he probably doesn't care because he's happy out there in Hoodoo country, and that's what counts no matter what road we take.

Still, as a teacher, I can't help but wonder what might have been. . . .