I sat mostly with the devils, the troubled, the misfit, and their parents.
Double trouble, children and their care-takers. Usually, they acted and thought the same way.
I don't have many memories of angelic events, the great sports and musical performances, the national and regional awards such events brought to our school and were immortalized on the halls of our institution.
No. I only remember those children/adolescents who had worn out their welcome, and their teachers' patience, and were sent to the office to see me, The Principal. Sometimes, the secretary had them waiting for me in the reception hallway, between boxes she was emptying, keeping them in a useful mode of sorts. When I'd ask her why she hadn't send them to me right away, she'd admit that they were good at helping her out, and that I needed a little respite between cases.
I remember my first suspension. A young man in a ceramic class. The substitute on that particular day was young and delicate, her first assignment in middle school. When the noon bell rang, she walked the young man to the office with the evidence he had created, a perfect anatomical representation of a male part. The assignment was to make a vase.
The secretary got him lunch, and then put him to work emptying boxes until I was available to see him. His art work sat on the front desk the entire time!
When I returned from lunch duty, that art work was the first thing that I saw.
"What's this?"
"Oh, it belongs to ...He's waiting for you."
"Send him in!"
Now, you know that the artistic merit of that work of art is not and was never in question. When his mother was called and the situation described to her, you know what she said?
"He must have been bored to death!"
Ah, these scenes have not left me yet.
Perhaps I should write them all down and.....
