terrypetersen

There’s something ugly about the flawless. (Dennis Lehane)

As a child I thought perfection was attainable. Expected. On multiple levels.

On an achievement test my sixth-grade teacher emphasized how important it was to erase completely. Pencil residue could be picked up and two filled-in boxes would mean an automatic wrong answer. I sat in the back corner of the room and sighed. That day had been particularly difficult, although I don’t recall why.

Not far into the test I needed to erase. The process became gruesome to this literal student. I moved so slowly through the pages that I eventually gave up. The next year the psychologically ignorant teacher positioned us in rows according to the grade we got on that test. There wasn’t enough room for the last two rows of desks—they were shoved together. I sat in the dummy section. After all, if we cheated the answers were bound to be wrong.

I must admit that seventh grade turned out to be fun. I sat next to the class clown. However, the image that teacher had of me stuck and showed up in my grades. Once again, why bother?

Then, that winter we were given an assignment to write a one-act play based on a book by a Catholic author. Mine was taken from “Fabiola” by Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, first published in 1854, a, thick book from my parents’ book shelves. It spoke of persecution in the lives of early Christians in the catacombs during the reign of Roman Emperor Diocletian. My teacher did not believe I had read the book much less written the play. My parents needed to verify the fact that I had chosen each word with the required fountain pen at the kitchen table. I had to bring the book to class so that both the principal and teacher could see that I had not plagiarized my assignment. Strangely, I was not frightened. I knew the work I had done was honest.

I won first prize in the Greater Cincinnati area from that one-act play. My grades improved drastically. Yet I was the same child, in the same row. By then I wouldn’t have chosen to sit anywhere else.

Those students I sat next to weren’t dummies either. Perhaps their skills didn’t include diagramming sentences and answering multiplication tables within a given number of seconds. I have no doubt that those conjoined rows housed kids who eventually owned their own businesses or who became beloved parents and grandparents, exemplary citizens, military heroes. They became folk who could find that glitch in a car’s engine no one else could find. Many probably graduated from college and earned degrees because they had learned to work for what they wanted.

They created common miracles no one ever chronicled. We are all important—in different ways.

(pic from Positive Words to Love By)

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