September 9, 2010
“When I was in the eighth grade, our teacher asked the class to explain a phrase she wrote on the blackboard.
The phrase: "Time flies".
No one could.
The teacher smiled and quietly replied, "You can't. They fly too fast!"
None of us were ready for her surprising answer, and incidentally, the entire class missed the point.
We thought she meant that time flies by fast, so quickly that one is surprised, not that we should try to time pesky flies with a stop watch, for example.
It was an important lesson I learned about life that day, and it had nothing to do with flies. The lesson is this: in school or in life, we are never ready for the punch line.
And that leads me to the rest of my story, as the late Paul Harvey, master of punch lines, would say.
Nearly 50 kids were packed into this teacher's basement classroom in a small, Missouri town when I was in the eighth grade. It was 1961.
Learning was exciting that year, as we were enthralled with the teacher's stories of her real-life experiences during World War II. We learned history first hand from her account of serving as a Red Cross captain attached to an Army unit on the Yugoslav-Italian border. She told us of attacks by guerrilla fighters, stories about prisoners of war, and of flying over Mount Vesuvius in an open-door cargo plane.
Most of us were amazed at the teacher's in-depth knowledge of almost any subject. She taught history, English, math, science and physical education without benefit of computers or a smart board.
She held advanced degrees, but never spoke of them. Her vast knowledge spoke to us instead.
When our class moved from that basement room upstairs to the high school, this teacher moved with us. There she taught geography, world history or American history to most of us at some time or other.
Over the years I saw her often. About two years ago she came to our house for a holiday dinner, one of the last times she was able to leave the nursing home where she is currently a resident.
This coming January 1 st , she will celebrate her 93 rd birthday. Yet, she does not know one day from another. She looks at her grandchildren and asks to be introduced. She can't remember to eat, and she repeats herself every few seconds if she talks at all.
When I visit her, she tells me her father is outside the window and I should let him in, that her mother is sick and she needs to go home to take care of her, that her husband is fixing a bird house in the backyard and when he is done they are leaving before the roads get too bad. Sometimes, she says I just missed seeing her cousins.
All of these people are dead incidentally, but she talks about them as if they were sitting beside us.
Her world is a radius of 12 inches around her. If you are farther away than that, she may not see or hear you. She doesn't know where she is or whether it is Sunday or Thursday, or if it is raining.
Rarely do I see a glimmer of that teacher who once knew so much.
And of course, she doesn't remember her stunning punch line she delivered many years ago, "Time flies! You can't. They fly too fast!"
But I do. How could I forget because that teacher who taught me then and who taught me all my life is my Mother?
Once in awhile she still surprises me with a punch line that I never expect.
The other day when the residents of her special care unit were acting out and were very rebellious and noisy, she looked at me and said with complete clarity, "Kay Jean, get out of here while you can."
Time does indeed fly too fast.
