Mrs. Wellington’s Seventh Grade English

Nothing of her physical being
could have prepared us
for her heft in front of the classroom.

She reminded me of a miniature version of Katherine Hepburn.
That distinctive voice.
That all-knowing look in her eye.
The haughtiness.
Straight spine.  
Caustic use of language.
No chit chat. All business.

She commanded attention
and demanded as close to perfection
as our 14-year-old minds could muster.
She taught us to value words.
She pounded the laws of grammar into our heads
with such determination and strength
that I recall most of the rules to this day.

We parsed and diagrammed sentence after sentence
into subject, predicate, object, modifier.
We learned nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives.
We learned how and where punctuation was used.
The skeleton of the English language. How to build a concise narrative and never,
never have a participle dangle at the end of a sentence;
that was heresy.

I still remember the terror that encompassed the class when she posed a question
and stared at us to see who would dare respond.
Some were brave enough to raise a hand and proffer an answer.
I recall the first time I curried the courage to half hold up that arm.
She acknowledged me.
I gave my answer gingerly.
She nodded and quipped in response:
Good guess!

Even then, I caught the playfulness of that retort.
Maybe that’s what planted the seed in me
to harness humor in my everyday life.
“Good guess! That’s all the congrats you will get from me.”
Tickles me to remember it, still.
Good guess was a gold star.
Mrs. Wellington, the stellar conveyor.