The Crab Chronicles

The Teacher That Changed My Life

Have you ever thought about the adult who most influenced you when you were a kid, who wasn't actually related to you? [I'm not talking about parents, siblings, grandparents, etc.] In the years since I walked out of Cedar Bluff Middle School for the last time in June of 1976 I have often thought about Catherine Gettys.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that the most memorable teacher I ever had was an English teacher. She was my homeroom teacher in 5th grade, and the English teacher on my team in 6th and 8th grades. About 90% of what I know about English Grammar, punctuation and spelling I learned from Miss Gettys. Of course, nobody called it "English" - it was "Language Arts."

Cedar Bluff Middle School in Knoxville in 1972 when I started 5th grade was very different than school is today. There were no computers anywhere. Girls being allowed to wear pants to school was a very new thing! Proper clothing for kids was strictly enforced. All grades [5th through 8th] went out to recess at least once a day. Parents were never asked to spend hundreds of dollars on school supplies. I usually got a new notebook and some pencils at the start of every year, and maybe a new lunchbox. We had Art and Music classes every week. We had PE classes several times a week, and for that we had to "dress out" - wear shorts and tee shirts, not our good "school clothes." Big treats were being able to watch movies once in a while, or field trips. Sometimes Drama students from the nearby University of Tennessee would do plays for us in the gym, and I loved that. I sang in Chorus every year, and loved "Mini Labs" -- fun classes like Fun Foods and Chess and Sign Language. I went there to Cedar Bluff Middle for four years, 5th through 8th grades, 1972-76. I was taunted about being fat and there were some boys who sometimes verbally bullied me, but otherwise those years were good.

There were teams of four teachers for each grade. We learned Math, Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts. Teams had 5th and 6th graders or 7th and 8th graders.

Things didn't start well with Miss Gettys. I was in 5th grade and it was her first year teaching. She had 35 rambunctious, intelligent fifth graders, and we were not shy or quiet. She was usually even-tempered but every so often she got so frustrated at our inability to be quiet that she was screamed at us. Sometimes other teachers had to come in and make us "quiet down." We were told by Miss Gettys as well as other teachers that we were the worst-behaved class in the entire school -- which I found mortifying. I was a shy bookworm and I didn't misbehave. I told my mother my frustrations but she couldn't do anything to help. Her wise counsel was always to mind my own business, do my work, and be respectful. My mother had been a teacher before she had kids.

I admired Miss Gettys. I liked her handwriting and copied it until mine looked like hers. I admired her for her appearance. She had a trim figure and curly reddish-brown hair. Her face still showed freckles. She wore a lot of jumpsuits, which were very popular then, cute jewelry, and occasionally a colorful scarf. Daily, she looked fashionable. I also always remember her with a large cup of coffee in her hand.

Miss Gettys' main contributions to my life were twofold. One, she taught me everything I know about how to write a proper, grammatical sentence. We diagrammed sentences for hours, on the board. Subject verb agreement was important. Commas were wielded appropriately. Paragraphs were built solidly and God help you if they were weak. I rarely cracked open my Harbrace because when I read the rules of grammar and punctuation they usually mystified me. I learned how to spot a bad sentence a mile away, though. It helped that I read voraciously and was always several years ahead in reading ability.

In 6th grade, her classroom was chock full of photos and drawings, and we could earn extra credit by writing paragraphs or stories describing what was depicted. I loved doing that. It taught me how to analyze an image, and how to think creatively. We didn't have letter grades but the good grades were "EP" (excellent progress) and "SP" (superior progress). I always made EPs or SPs in her class.

In 7th grade I had the misfortune to be in the homeroom of a Language Arts teacher who was a nice man but very ineffective as a teacher, Mr. McCormick. Worse, the 7th graders were divided up at the beginning of the year and classified as either being smart or dumb -- of course those terms weren't used but it was obvious. Math was my weakness and because I was terrible at it I got put in the dumb class. It was humiliating and I was miserable. I don't think I learned anything in any classroom that year because the kids were so awful the teachers made no real effort. Lesson plans were ignored by most of the kids and classrooms were zoo-like.

I was on a different team in 8th grade and I was much happier. Over that summer, all the kids grew, and I went from being freakishly taller and bigger than anyone else to being among the shortest in class, at 5'3. We had a good group of girls and we all got to be friends. They were a lot of slumber parties that year.

Once again, Miss Gettys was my English teacher.

In 8th grade I started calling her "Catherine" instead of Miss Gettys. I don't know why I did it and I don't know why she put up with it. I remember tedious classes in grammar and punctuation, and more sentence diagramming, but also chances to write creatively.

Every year, each team awarded prizes for every subject. You could either win Most Improved or Best Student. In 8th grade I wanted to Win Best Student in Language Arts. I worked hard all year and Made SPs every quarter. A poem I had sent in to Read Magazine was actually published! It was a national magazine for kids. Another one of my poems was published in a collection of children's poetry by the University of Tennessee. I was chosen to be on the newspaper staff at Farragut High School while still in 8th grade, which thrilled me. I had been a writer for my team magazines in 7th and 8th grades. I felt like I deserved to be acknowledged as the best English student on my team.

The day came for the awards to be handed out. I remember sitting on the floor of the gym and hearing all the names called out. Finally, they got to the Language Arts awards for our team. I won! I was furious though because I was named Most Improved in English, not the Best.

I remember stomping angrily up to take my award from Miss Gettys, not looking at her, so terribly upset that I went home and cried. My parents couldn't console me. The boy who won was a smug jerk that I couldn't stand. [I think today he is a car salesman.]

[above left, me in 5th grade, and right me in 7th grade]

It was really childish but I was angry at Miss Gettys for years. I held a major grudge. I never got over that Most Improved prize humiliation. I think it fueled my desire to write because I wanted to prove to Miss Gettys that she was wrong to give me that "most improved" award. I published a memoir about my daughter's adoption in 2009 and I sent a promotional postcard to the school after seeing online that Miss Gettys was still teaching there. I wanted her to see me as a published author, not some pitiful chubby kid who never amounted to anything. I addressed the card to her.

She probably never imagined that I would eventually become a published writer with an extensive portfolio, or that I would publish novels on Amazon. I also utilize my writing skills daily in my job as a litigation paralegal and I've written a sourcebook for paralegals, Paralegal 411.

I Googled Miss Gettys a few years ago and she was still teaching at Cedar Bluff Middle School but she had switched to teaching Social Studies. Her students loved her. I long ago forgave her for not giving me the prize I had felt I deserved. She gave two things far more valuable -- the ability to proofread and edit like a pro, and a love of creative writing that caused me to get an MA in Creative Writing and to eventually become a novelist.

If I can find her on social media I'd like to send a link to Miss Gettys, to show her that she had a huge influence on my life, and to thank her for everything. I don't think she ever had children of her own but her impact on her students was profound.

We need more teachers like her. Below, my 5th grade class. I am not in the picture because I was sick that day.

Check out my latest novel Dancing in the Wreckage.

My Scary Weird Bucket List

There's a great movie called The Bucket List and before I saw that (years ago) I only had a vague idea of what a "bucket list" is, and although it's a terrific movie it didn't make me want to run out and write a bucket list.

Most bucket lists have things like "travel to Europe" or "skydive" or "meet the pope," etc. 

My bucket list is completely different. First of all, travel is not all it's cracked up to be. I cannot imagine anything that would entice me to sit on an airplane for hours, stuck in a big metal tube in the sky, in close proximity to a hundred strangers, exposed to their coughs and farts and sharing a tiny bathroom with all of them. BTDT when I went to Russia 4 times and Kazakhstan 2 times between 2003 and 2007. I am not scared to fly, but I hate flying because I hate crowds.

For the record, I hated crowds before Covid but I now utterly loathe crowds and I will never willingly expose myself to them. No game, concert, or church service will ever entice me to be around crowds.I am a homebody, and that's not uncommon for folks my age.

My son and I had a very late lunch yesterday at Honeybaked Ham and there were no other people in the store as customers, and just 2 guys behind the counter. It was lovely.

I will never willingly skydive. Somebody very big and strong, holding a gun, would be necessary before I would jump out of an airborne airplane and even then I would hesitate. I fear no diaper would save me from the dire consequences of that jump, because unlike lighter people my fat ass would plummet me straight to the ground long before the parachute would open. The mess would be terrible, unless I was dropped into the ocean.

No, my bucket list will likely have to wait for some scientific breakthroughs or a resurgence of elemental magic before it will ever be possible, any of it. It's below, in no particular order.

1) time travel to 1978 and leave a note for my high school self saying "give up all carbs forever and join a gym asap and workout every.single.day"

2) have a nice long lunch with Tom Hanks

3) move into my own house which has a screened-in back porch and sits on at least two acres

4) spend the day with all of my Thompson first cousins and their families, just eating and chilling out and visiting

5) spend the day with all of my Hasty first cousins and their families, just eating and chilling out and visiting

6) eat a big piece of chocolate cheesecake with no gastric consequences

7) spend a week at the beach, slightly off season like maybe in September, with my kids and my best friends, all in one big house with a pool

8) have a weekend visit with my only sibling, who hasn't visited me in years

9) time travel back to 1957, to just after my parents get married, and tell my parents to get some counseling

10) time travel back to 1970 so I can talk to my grandfather (Bob Hasty) and ask him to tell me about the scandal that cost him his major league baseball career. [I tried to write a book about it, a novel, Return to Marietta, but it didn't sell]

11) eat a nice long lunch with my favorite singer, Mary Chapin Carpenter

12) have some private lessons with the Dalai Llama on meditation and inner peace

13) write a bestselling novel

14) spend a few days in the mountains of East Tennessee during the Fall, with one of my friends and no crowds [this is the most farfetched of all my list items!]

15) travel across Canada, through the Canadian Rockies, by train

 

I just re-read my list and realized a lot of the items have to do with spending time with family and friends. I think at the end of my life that's what I will regret most, not spending more time with family and friends.

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The Best First Line

I have long been fascinated by the first lines of bestselling novels because most people will not keep reading unless that first line grabs them, and then it's up to the author to carry the good momentum to the first paragraph and the first chapter. Below are a few famous first lines, just for reference:

 

"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were." Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

"While I was still in Amsterdam, I dreamed about my mother for the first time in years." The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt

"She is twelve years old, and she will be married in the morning." The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese

"First, I got myself born." Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize)

"It wasn't a very likely place for disappearances, at least at first glance." Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

 

So I am trying to come up with an idea for my next novel, and I am taking my time because I want it to be my best book yet. I have an unpublished manuscript I am shopping around to agents but without much luck, so it occurred to be that I need to do a better job of coming up with the first line of my next book. Once I have the first line, I generally will be able to come up with the gist of the book's plot and from there and outline will shake out eventually.

Below are some first lines I like, but I'd like to know which one you like best. Drop me a comment and let me know.

1) DNA doesn't lie, but Ann still couldn't believe what she was seeing on her computer screen because the truth of it made everything in her life completely false and hollow.

2) Jayne stared at the soaking wet, naked man with long tangled blonde hair lying on the floor and tried to understand the events that had led to his appearance in her life -- and from there she hoped to be able to harness the mysterious power she had been unaware of just one minute ago.

3) "When you believe in yourself, really believe, other people will too," Skyler's father told her sternly, hoping she would believe his words, that she would listen.

4) There are places in the world like Greystone Georgia where the past and the present exist simultaneously, with just the thinnest of membranes separating them, but Charlie Bay could see that membrane clearly, despite the migraine.

5) It's time to tell you the truth about your daddy, and what happened the night you were born -- but don't be thinking you'll have the right to hate me then because you won't.

6) Camellia Gardenia Crow was named after two famous Southern flowers because she had to be named after her two grandmothers, according to a family tradition she hated -- but as a result she spent her childhood stomping in every mud puddle she encountered, loudly hollering whenever possible, and determined to be as ill-mannered and obnoxious as a child could be. 

Check out my newest novel, Dancing in the Wreckage, on Amazon.

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above, me in London, 1988

Stopping a Child's Tantrum

Not long before she died my mother and I had a very illuminating talk and she reminded me of something she did when I was a small child that had lasting repercussions in my life. I was telling her about something I'd read about the best way to deal with a child who was having a meltdown, putting them into "time in" instead of "time out" and she listened very thoughtfully. "I did that with you," she remarked.

"What? I don't remember that." Then she reminded me of her tantrum strategy.

I was the baby of the entire family. All my Thompson cousins were 5-10 years older. All my Hasty cousins were 2-12 years older. Often I was the youngest child in the neighborhood.

When we lived at our wonderful old house on Heard Avenue in Augusta I was 1-5 years old. It's the first house I remember. It was built in the early 20th century and had a big front porch, with a swing. Sitting out there, watching the bees and butterflies in the flowers, was peaceful and lovely.

I always wanted to play with the bigger kids, play on an equal basis with them. My two best playmates were my brother Bruce, 2 1/2 years older than me, and my BFF and next door neighbor Joanne, about 18 months older. So often, though, I couldn't keep up with them intellectually or physically.

I would get frustrated and have screaming temper tantrums. I could throw quite a tantrum. I've always had a BIG voice, even as a little kid, not to mention a flare for the dramatic.

Mom developed a strategy born of desperation, I'm sure. She did what would now be called a "therapeutic hold" - a controversial technique but one that works.

When I launched into a tantrum, she would pick me up and go out to the front porch, getting me away from the older kids, and sit down on the porch swing. There, she would quietly hold me and swing, while rubbing my back. I can remember that very well.

I was a fighter. I always wanted to fight, and beat my enemies. [Good preparation for spending decades as a litigation paralegal, now that I think of it!] The older kids became "enemies" when they excluded me, intentionally or unintentionally. Bruce and Joanne loved me but I know at times they viewed me as a nuisance.

Anyway, when I threw a fit Mom got me away from the other kids and that was a blessing. I thought of her as a huge, strong person, and I was astonished to grow up and see she was petite [5'4] and not very strong, actually.

Once we were seated on the porch swing, I could not get down, off of her lap, until I went through several steps.

1. I had to un-clench my entire body and stop crying.
2. I had to get my breathing back to normal. Sometimes I had to endure Mom wiping off my face with a cold wet washcloth.
3. I had to listen to Mom telling me not to let the other kids bother me -- or her explanation of why the tantrum was the wrong response to whatever was bothering me.
4. I had to just sit quietly for at least 5 minutes, while Mom rocked. Sometimes we would sing, or she would sing to me.
5. I had to laugh. Mom made a sort of puppet with her hand, sticking her thumb between her index and middle finger, and did the funny voice of Thumb-bum. I had to listen to Thumb-bum tease me or say funny things until I laughed.
6. Finally, I had to promise to behave myself before I was allowed to get off her lap and go back to playing.

Now, I didn't know as a small child that my mother was unusual. I didn't know she had taken many classes in psychology, including child psychology. I didn't know that she found her two children endlessly fascinating and she studied how to help us to have as happy and stress-free a childhood as possible. I'm sure there was fierce protectiveness because she knew there would never be more children. She had wanted four kids but fibroid tumors in her ovaries made it really difficult for her to get pregnant and led to a hysterectomy when I was still small.

She was a brilliant person and I know at times she found it really difficult to be a stay at home mom, stuck in a house all day with two small children. Dad was very tight with money so there was little extra for fun activities. I feel very lucky that she was able to be at home with us, though. She essentially taught me how to calm myself down, and not let the bigger kids destroy my peace of mind.

To all you young parents out there, God Bless You. If you find yourself dealing with tantrums, try a loving "time in" plus therapeutic hold, and see how that works. It will eventually get better. If you're lucky, you might wind up with a child who can calm themselves down effectively even when you aren't with them.

#thebestwaytocalmachild, #dealingwithchildhoodtantrums, #therapeuticholds, #timeinforkids