The Bitch Was Mine...

 
So…I’m suppose to tell you about me hitting my seventh grade teacher. But it wasn’t my fault - kinda.

Mrs. Stringfellow had a bad habit of pulling hair. Not just pulling, but grabbing a handful and shaking the head while telling the tormented student (okay it was me) not to talk in class. Teachers could get away with shit like that back then. I have also been hit on the back of the hand with a ruler for poor penmanship, but that was pretty common among the classes. I wasn’t singled out for that infraction.

Anyways, it didn’t matter if it was actually me or my buddies Richard or Tommy talking, if she heard noise in my direction, I was the target. In all fairness, there was a couple of other punks and one girl that was the recipient of the head shaking, too. But I, deservedly, was the numero uno target.

One day was pretty bad in that I got jerked three or four times and my head was sore. When I got home my two older brothers, Bill and Jim, who were 15 and 10 years older than me, were home, too. I don’t remember why they were home, but they were. As I walked in the bedroom, Bill rubbed my head and said some kind of hello. I winched a little and he wanted to know why.

Dumb me, I told him about Mrs. Stringfellow and the hair pulling. He just chuckled and said I probably deserved it. So I was headed into the other bedroom when I heard Jim say, “If that bitch pulled my hear I would knock the shit out of her.” That’s good enough for me. If Jim, who had rather fight than fuck, said that was the thing to do, then the bitch was mine.

So the next day, sure enough, here she came down the isle with that look on her face. She grabbed me by the hair, jerking me up out of my desk and started to shake my head. That’s when I came up between her tits (there were surprisingly soft, as I remember it) and caught her under her chin.

She started to stagger backwards but was able to grabbed me by the neck of my shirt with her other hand while still holding on to my hair. She took three or four steps backward with me still in her grasp, bent over and trying to keep my balance. And just like in the movies when a car is speeding backward and the driver does a 180 spin to start forward, she got her footing and off I was going to the principles office, my feet barely touching the ground and trying to keep from slipping and falling.

She got to the principles office and, without knocking, flung the door open (good thing he wasn’t jacking off or humping a teacher or something) and threw me into the office and yelled at Mr. Cooper, “This little bastard just hit me and I want him out of this school, NOW.” Mr. Cooper, calmly but sternly told her, in effect, to shut the fuck up and get out. He would handle it.

And he did. We talked about what and why and he said that he would talk to her because he had been getting some reports from some parents about her conduct. But he could not condone violence in his school, so I was suspended for three days. She kept her job. But I had a rough rest of the year on top of all the emotional stuff. In fact, she moved me and my desk next to hers. I was having some rough times growing up and no support at home that year and my grades were not that good. So at the end of the school year she had the pleasure, according to her smile and the gleam in her eyes, of telling me in front of the class that I wasn’t being promoted to the eighth grade, but that I was being ‘placed’ there.

Back in the 50’s, the city of Atlanta did not have junior highs. Elementary was from 1st to 7th and high school form 8th to 12th. She just didn’t want me back in her class again and the feeling was mutual. She was never on my Christmas card list, either.

However, for a while after I punched her, I was treated like a hero by my classmates. I kept in touch with Mr. Cooper for many years, till he passed away and he repeatedly laughed about the incident and said that he often wished he could have done the same thing to her.

But I was on my brothers shit-list for a long time after that. Jim never admitted that he said that, but we both knew he did.

Those Were The Days

Amy, over at Mish Mash, wrote about her hard ass and her first grade experience, so I thought I would tell you about my seventh grade endeavor to be like my older brothers. Back in the 50's Atlanta there were no kindergartens or middle schools. You started the first grade and went through the seventh grade in elementary school. Then you went to high school, starting in the eighth grade (as a sub-freshman.)

My seventh grade teacher, Mrs. Stringfellow, pulled hair if you misbehaved. One day she came down the isle and grabbed me by the hair and shook my head telling me to stop talking in class. That afternoon, when I got home, one of my older brothers (10 and 15 years older) rubbed my head and said, “How’d it go today, squirt?”

I must have flinched, because he asked me what was wrong. I told him Mrs. Stringfellow had pulled my hair. He said something like; you probably deserved it, too. But when I walked out of the room I heard him tell my other brother, “If the bitch did that to me I would knock her teeth out.” That was good enough for me. If my brothers thought that was the thing to do, then it had to be the right thing. I mean, they were older and wiser.

The next day, down the row she came, grabbed a handful of hair and started shaking my head like a dog with an old shoe (guess I really got on her nerves sometimes.) So, I gave her an uppercut that caused her to bit her tongue. My feet didn’t touch the floor until I was in the Principle’s office. Then I was suspended for three days and kick out of school like an old drunk being thrown out of the saloon in a western movie (okay that was an exaggeration.) But I was suspended and my mom beat my butt, my dad beat my butt and my brother beat my butt for telling mom it was his fault. I walked funny for those three days.

But when I went back to school I had a “flat-top” haircut - complete with Butch Hair Wax. Let the bitch try and grab me by the hair now. So she used my ears. That's why, if you look at my head from behind, it looks like a car with the doors open.

Those were the days. I wonder what would happen to Mrs. Stringfellow if she pulled hair today. Maybe a coffeypot wanna-be would pop a cap in her ass. Or the PTA would burn her at the stake. Or the ACLU would sue her for denying the wanna-be their Constitutional Rights of Free Speech. But I do know that my mom and dad would still have beat my butt. That was their favorite pastime.