It was the worst week in my barely seven years on Earth.
The first mishap took place on our aunt’s horse ranch we loved to visit. Nifty, a pet Shetland pony had ventured into the rather large playhouse my cousins had built and was gawking out the window and shaking his mane.
I came out of my aunt’s house, took one look, pointed and declared, “Holy Jesus, doesn’t he look funny.”
My mom grabbed me by the collar, draped me over the front step and delivered an old fashioned spanking.
Now I was already a Sunday School veteran, and as far as I could discern, uttering the words Jesus and holy should not have triggered corporal punishment like what I had just received. I knew nothing about context at the time. Jesus and holy were only okay to use in certain circumstance and sequences and I obviously had stepped into the holy do-dah and therefore suffered consequences. A partially learned lesson.
Fast forward three days.
I am seated at my desk in a Grade 1 class with Miss Humphries as teacher and commander.
We had been assigned drawing books at the start of the school year, which were scribblers without lines. At various times in the week, we had drawing classes. When our drawing books were full, we were instructed to take them up front to Miss Humphries for a final check and then be issued a brand new sketch book.
I advanced my book forward for adjudication. Alas, on the last page, in stark reality, was an open stretch of page, about eight inches across and six inches deep … untouched by any of my artistic renderings.
Miss Humphries took a ruler, drew lines around the blank space and asked, “If this were a chocolate bar, would you eat it or leave it?”
“What flavour?” was my response.
Before I could blink, the ruler came down hard across my outstretched hand and wrist. It really stung.
“I will not tolerate insolence,” she declared.
For the second time in a week, I was trapped in a world of misunderstanding.
I kind of knew what tolerate meant because I had heard adults talk about politicians. But insolence was a new word for me, one that I was obviously learning about the hard way. It was something I was going to have to look up in that big book they called a dictionary, as soon as I learned how to spell … which would probably be pretty soon.
Insolence was going to be one of the first words to learn, once I developed some literary skills.
I was hurt and humiliated and slunk back to my desk. My classmates who had jumped when they heard the whack, were now suddenly silenced.
Two days later, I mustered up sketching courage to forge a picture of a house with a bunch of flowers on the front lawn, to satisfy my inner Van Gogh I presume. I then drew a pony, named Nifty, eating the flowers. All that was contained in my “chocolate bar” space.
It passed inspection and I received a red check mark and the green light to pick up a new drawing book, which I did, tentatively but gratefully.
So, what’s the message I got out of those two “early episodes?”
If you’re ever handed a chocolate bar, well holy Jesus, just eat the damn thing and don’t inquire about flavour or else you’ll be “insolence.”
Some lessons come harder than others.
