Swing Low (18 page)

I was, very much so. Elvira and I discussed the pros and cons of such a move and concluded that it would be a good thing to do, a wonderful opportunity. I was very pleased that I had been considered capable of being a principal,
although I had never really harboured any desire to become one and I wouldn’t have taken the job if I hadn’t also been able to teach in the classroom. A few weeks later I met Mrs. I.Q. outside. I had been teaching Marjorie how to ride a two-wheeler, running back and forth along the sidewalk, reluctant to take my hand off the back of her bike seat. Mrs. I.Q. shuffled out onto the sidewalk and hollered at me. Mel, she said, let go once! I did, and of course Marjorie maintained her balance and that was that, she could ride a two-wheeler. Mrs. I.Q. stepped into a square of sunlight on her front yard and waved me over. Well, Melvin, she said, I hear you’re going to be a principal now, pretty big deal, nay? I smiled and shrugged. Who knows? I said, I’ll try it. So now you’ve stopped trying to run away from home? she asked, bending over to yank a few dandelions out of her lawn. Well, I have a new one, I said quietly. That’s right, said Mrs. I.Q.

We stood and watched Marjorie ride her bike back and forth. I smiled as much as I could, yelling out occasional words of encouragement. At one point Mrs. I.Q. lifted her hand to wave at Marjorie, and I said, No, no, don’t. I was afraid Marjorie would wave back and lose all control. Okay, said Mrs. I.Q., stuffing her hands into her apron, no waving. She punched me lightly on my shoulder and chortled to herself. Well, Melvin, she said, there are lots of ways to run,
yo?
I suppose so, I said, not sure what she was getting at. I think you’re safe now, she said, it’s time to stop running. She laughed and punched me on the shoulder again. Right? she said. Right, I replied.

That fall, I said good-bye to the students and staff at Elmdale, who wished me well and hoped that someday I’d be back, and began my new job at Southwood School. The various ingredients of a happy life were coming together beautifully, I thought. Miraculously, I had found life’s easy two-four rhythm. I would have made a Faustian pact to have lived the rest of my days this way. My brother and his family now lived in a different town, where he was busy building a career that would eventually culminate … right here! (Like mine!) My sister and her family bounced around the mission field saving Latin souls and occasionally landing in Steinbach for some church-sponsored R and R.

Mother continued to have her bouts of getting drunk on vanilla and to write her gossip column and attend church services dressed with her usual flair, wearing any one of twenty or so fancy hats and always, always perched erectly like a nervous bird on the same pew, a little to the left and up front, year in and year out. Occasionally, when her drinking got very bad, we would take her to the hospital to spend some time drying out. She never, not once, acknowledged that she had a drinking problem or that she’d ever had even one single drink in her life, so these drying-out times were rather awkward for her. Hello! she’d cry out when we came to visit, Hello, hello, hello. If Elvira would attempt to talk to her about the problem, or simply to inquire after her well-being, she’d repeat her simple greeting, Hello! hello, hello, hello … Which we knew was her way of saying, Not a word! a word, a word, a word … And so we sat at her
bedside in total silence, while she lay there grinning from ear to ear, her eyes darting from Elvira to me and back to Elvira, ready to screech Hello! if either one of us dared open our mouths.

Thank goodness for the relative normalcy of Elvira’s family. Her brothers and I had a genuine respect for one another. I, for their ability to make money hand over fist, for their unabashed delight in spending it, and for their infectious joie de vivre, and they, for my modest degree of education, my passion for teaching school, and my quiet studiousness. Even our physical appearances seemed to convey our different personalities: the brothers were short, none of them over five foot seven, fat, bald, and handsome in the defiant manner of Mafia overlords. I, on the other hand, towered over them, skinny as a rail, like a sick tree. At that time, before my medication made me puffy, I weighed less than a hundred and fifty pounds.

The brothers knew of my illness but I rather think they regarded it as a natural affliction of the sensitive, bookish individual, and in a strange and simplistic way, they understood. None of them had attended school beyond grade twelve, and if any of them had ever read a book, I’d be shocked to hear of it. Later, in the early seventies, I was a part of the committee formed to establish the first public library in Steinbach, and my brothers-in-law, though they’ve never in all these years seen the inside of it, thought it was a marvellous idea.

It wasn’t easy to convince town council that the people of Steinbach would benefit from a public library. We had requested that the library be housed in the town civic centre,
but some of the councillors were concerned about the type of “undesirable traffic” it would attract. We all know about the kind of people who hang around the curling rink, the hockey rink, and the post office. Do we want that type of crowd hanging around in the civic centre? Several councillors chastised our group for misrepresenting ourselves. “You said when you came to us two years ago that you would be happy with anything, the most humble facilities, if only we would let you have a library. Now you are talking about deluxe accommodations.” The to-ing and fro-ing between town council and Friends of the Library was duly recorded and published in the
Carillon News.
One editor even admonished town council for treating the Friends of the Library “like deadbeat relatives looking for a handout, rather than concerned citizens working diligently for a much needed community facility.”

Eventually, after hitting the streets with petitions and garnering the number of signatures (360) necessary to call for a regional referendum on the library issue, and with much persuasion, and with our agreeing to locate in the old Kornelson School rather than push for “deluxe accommodation” in the civic centre, even though its original building plan had reserved space for a town library within its walls, we were given the green light. There were four of us who formed the nucleus of the library board and we met twice monthly for more than twenty years, during which time the library grew and thrived and became the busiest, most used in the province.

Teenage girls whispered and bickered and giggled at large oak tables, pretending to be working on school projects.
Boys fought with each other over the latest Stephen King novel. Earnest Mennonite historians from the Bible school pored over thick volumes of pioneer life and family genealogies, housewives ran in and out with a few paperback murder mysteries shoved in their purses, young couples kissed furtively in dark corners, children played hide-and-seek between shelves, conservative senior citizens roamed the aisles hunting for offensive material (Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger, Judy Blume), and through it all the friendly, steely-nerved, tough-as-nails Gladys Barkman, head librarian, kept everybody in line.

With my library board responsibilities, my teaching, and my new job as principal of Southwood School, I was a busy man, and as fulfilled as I’d ever be. My dreams of homelessness continued, but I chose to ignore them. There wasn’t enough time in the day to brood over dreams. I didn’t want to be that type of a person anyway. I wanted to stop navel gazing and meeting with my psychiatrist and obsessing over the past. I wanted to become more like my brothers-in-law, more worldly, more confident. I wanted to accomplish things, create things, make a name for myself. I wanted to become as carefree as Elvira and as wise as Mrs. I.Q. I wanted to be well. I wanted to grow up. I wanted to stop being ashamed of every last thing in my life.

It was during this time that I began to take notes. Every morning and every evening before bed I would jot down what I thought were the key points of effective teaching, of
boosting morale among staff members, of being civil, decent, and good. I have boxes and boxes of lined recipe cards with notes to myself on how to live, on how to be a role model, on how to bring the very best out of people, on how to educate, to encourage self-expression, to open minds. I reviewed my lessons at the end of each day like an athlete going over every aspect of his game. What worked, what didn’t, what captured the attention of my students, what left them cold, which information mattered, and which didn’t. I would cull from these lessons the finest ingredients and over time distill them into one smooth golden recipe for success. I was developing my style and honing my craft. I was utterly obsessed with being the best, the absolute best I could be.

Sometime in 1966, during my first year as principal and teacher at Southwood School, the staff decided to produce a play and I was asked to direct. Naturally I assumed these duties with enthusiasm, obsessive attention to detail, and my characteristic good humour. The play, a romantic comedy that is likely no longer in print, was called “Wanted: A Housekeeper.” The gist of the plot is simple. A bachelor requires a maid and proceeds to interview several women for the job. (Remember, the year was 1966.) Every day for three weeks, the teachers and I would meet after school in the multipurpose room for rehearsals. Elvira would occasionally come to watch us practise, leaning up against the wall and howling with laughter at our gaffes and earnestness. Can’t hear you! she’d call out to the actors if they were mumbling, or Don’t turn your back to the audience! There was a role for a young boy in the play, the son of one of the
potential maids, and I recruited Marjorie, who was eight, to play the part. Every day, during those three weeks of rehearsals, she’d run the five or six blocks from Elmdale School to Southwood School, out of breath and grinning from ear to ear, proud to be playing a part in an adult drama. For the actual performance, which was a huge success and attended by all the teachers and their spouses of the Hanover School Division, she wore a grey wool suit borrowed from one of her cousins.

After the play, when life resumed its normal course, I would invite Marjorie to my class at Southwood School, sit her at a desk, and give her grade six tests to write. She loved the challenge. When she was finished I marked them and gave her a grade. She insisted I make no special concession for her age, and even though she consistently came up with marks of 38 percent or 43 percent or perhaps the odd 51 percent, she was thrilled to have been tested at the higher level.

Then the two of us would walk home together, along Reimer, across the parking lot of the Evangelical Mennonite Brethren (or E.M.B.) church, past the cemetery where Elvira’s six brothers and sisters were buried in a neat row, and her parents too, and down First Street to our beautiful dusty rose house, where Elvira would greet us cheerfully at the door, a tired grin on her face, Miriam on her hip, and dinner sometimes on the table.

And so two years at Southwood passed. That spring I began thinking about my own rather limited education. In those days a year or two at normal school was all that was required, but I knew that times were changing. I knew that I’d require more education, more than a teaching certificate,
to be the best that I could be, and although I was very happy at Southwood and would have been content to remain there forever, I decided I would take a year off and go back to university for my Bachelor of Education.

When I made mere mention of the possibility of moving to Winnipeg and pursuing my education, Elvira jumped for joy and said, Hallelujah — thank you, God! Throughout her life one of Elvira’s burning desires has been to move to the city, to live amidst the hustle and bustle, to experience the sights and sounds and concert halls and theatres and restaurants and crowds and festivals and commerce and shops and grit and crime and politics and universities and everything else that a city has to offer.

Let’s go! she said. Let’s do it! I reminded her that it would only be for a year, that the sole purpose of the move was to further my education, and when that was done we’d move back to Steinbach. Yes, yes, she said, scrambling to find suitcases and arrange a school transfer for Marjorie.