throwing silence to the wind.

I was just sitting here thinking about Mrs. Hartso. And I wanted to tell the goofy little story about Mrs. Hartso, but there just wasn't enough for a full entry. So it's Substitute Teacher time, Three Things Style.

Thing 1: Mrs. Woodring
I never had a very flattering view of Mrs. Woodring's intelligence. Maybe I always figured that the reason she wasn't a full-fledged teacher was because she couldn't get into full-fledged teacher school. She was the standard substitute; in elementary school, I probably had her more than any other sub. But the thing that drove me nuts about her was the way she pronounced "apostrophe." And it seemed like every time she taught us, we had to learn something about contractions or possessive nouns. I'd like to find her now, give her a good shake, and ask her, "What in heaven's name is an 'a-pos-ta-pee?'" Come to think of it, I think she said "li-berry" too.
Now I'm wondering just what kind of weird, anal-retentive ten-year-old I was to be bothered by this so much. Perhaps the kind that grows into a weird, anal-retentive twenty-two-year-old.

Thing 2: Mrs. White
In the observatory. With the candlestick.

No, no. Mrs. White was a perfectly normal lady with a penchant for leopard print up until about seventh period one day during my eighth grade year. Then she became a completely absent lady with a penchant for leopard print. She just left in the middle of the day. I'm not even sure why. We hadn't been terrorizing her at all. It had just been normal science class with us sitting there nicely doing busy work. There might have been some friendly banter with the jocks. The ironic thing was that she left (crying, by the way) right before the advanced class came in, which probably would have been cake for her. Silly lady. She probably wasn't a full-fledged teacher because she couldn't hack it in full-fledged teacher school.

I tell this story a couple different ways depending on the audience. Sometimes it's the more accurate crazy lady story. Other times, it's more like "Once, my class made a substitute teacher cry and leave before the school day was out." Everyone is always very impressed.

Thing 3: Mrs. Hartso
Ah, the inspiration for this whole entry. I only had the Mrs. Hartso experience a couple of times in middle school. She was an old, squat woman with a cheeky mouth that comes from years of raising/teaching children in the South. She used to tell us that she was a hundred years old. She was probably more like seventy. She liked me because she knew my dad and liked him. So she'd get up close to me to talk in conspiratorial tones, all the while spitting on my face with every word.

You didn't mess with Mrs. Hartso, because she came from a time when children were meant to be beaten and not heard. We were too young to logically come to the conclusion that she couldn't legally take us over her knee and light a fire on our hides, so we minded her. Not that she ever actually threatened to do that, but the threat was somehow implied by her nature.

But the thing I will always remember about Mrs. Hartso was when she made us write sentences. We were apparently being loud as a class, and so she decided that we would write a sentence one hundred times as punishment. She wrote the sentence on the board.

"Silence is the best policy."

What? No. Silence is golden. Honesty is the best policy. Of course, I could hardly argue with her, seeing as she thought silence was the best policy. I really wanted to, because I still believed that it was honesty. I can't figure why she didn't go with "Silence is golden," except that maybe she thought we deserved a longer sentence. But if she was going to abandon sense and just go for length, she should have gone all out with something like "Silence in the hand is worth two birds in the bush" or maybe "Early to bed, early to rise, and shutting the heck up makes a man healthy, wealthy, wise, and silent."

In any case, I do enjoy using Mrs. Hartso's example from time to time for silliness. You can say anything is the best policy, and no one can argue with you, because you sound very wise. I told my coworker today that caution was the best policy. He started mumbling something or other about throwing caution to the wind, but that can't be right, because caution is the best policy. It's also golden.