Brothers, Take Two
Fixing Internet Confusion
I am so sorry everyone. I don’t know what happened to the story when it was first published and why it got so messed up. Randomly repeating passages made it very confusing. Hopefully this version is right!
One of the reasons we moved to Montana from Connecticut was that we felt it would be a better place for our children to grow up. We did some research and visited friends in Big Timber discovering that the school system was well thought of around the state. We enjoyed the beauty of the area and met some nice people. A friend assured us we could rent a place out in the country and, with his help, did exactly that. We decided there was no point living in Montana if you are going to live in town. On the ranch the kids could wander where they wanted. They learned to ride a horse and bottle feed an orphaned calf. They caught Garter snakes and Killdeer chicks. They could stalk sharp eyed Antelope and watch Eagles teach their young to fly. Kerry once wrote that the boys learned on the ranch that life can be black and white. Life and death. There is not much nuance or equivocating that surrounds you when your first driving lessons are in the feed truck plowing through two foot of snow in four-wheel low, or realize the harmless snake you are trying to catch is actually a rattler that turns to face you down.
We have two boys, grown men now, who were and still are very different personalities. Jack, the oldest, is gregarious and outgoing, Michael two years younger, is more introverted. He listens and observes everything. We treated them equally but handled them differently. For instance, when Jack started school, we didn’t worry at all. We still laugh about his first day at nursery school. He went in with Kerry who was holding his hand. He walked up to the teacher who was a total stranger and said, “Hi, I’m Jack. What can I play with? Bye Mommy!” and proceeded to join all the other kids he didn’t know and had a blast. Kerry was a little sad. Her little boy just didn’t need her emotional support at all.
Mike, Michael or Mickey depending on who is talking to him, on the other hand was not like that at all. He hated new situations and people that he hadn’t been thoroughly briefed on ahead of time. A wonderful nursery school teacher helped him gain confidence by putting him in charge of a boy who was having a hard time adjusting to school. Kerry and I just loved her. Still, we were not sure if we should send him to kindergarten or wait one more year until he was more emotionally mature. It’s funny thinking about that now because he is a deputy sheriff, deals with the unknown daily, and runs toward the danger that others run away from. Just goes to show that you never know what your children will become as they grow up.
Our experience with the school system had been nothing but positive with Jack, but again, he was the kind of kid that is easy to deal with. Kindergarten and First Grade were good for Mike, and we were becoming less concerned about emotional maturity. He still wasn’t thrilled with new situations, but he was learning how to handle them. I’m not sure how many times we told him, “If you don’t understand what a teacher wants, ask them to explain it to you. It’s their job.” His usual reaction to something confusing was to shut down and you would never get him to bend his stiff Irish neck and do what you want, especially if he thought you were being unfair. You had to just explain things to him in detail and logically. He would understand and then do what you want.
The beginning of Second Grade came around and I remember how beautiful the weather was that summer and fall and felt bad for the kids being in school. I hated the first day of school as a kid and an adult. As a kid I just thought there were lots of interesting things to do at home and school got in the way. There were also bullies on the bus and at school so I could avoid them by staying at home.
As a parent, I hated school because I didn’t know what was going on with the kids. Were there any bullies? Was the class work going to be too hard? What if they don’t like their lunch? I know, I know, it sounds silly, but school was not much fun for me, so I projected a lot.
Grammar school had only been in session for a couple days when I found myself riding in the same golf cart as the school principal, Bill. He was a great guy, and the boys loved him. In fact, his wife, Barbara, was Mike’s teacher and it was her first full-time teaching job.
“Did Mike tell you about his first day yesterday?” Bill asked as he lined up a shot.
“You know Michael. He said it was fine. Why?”
Bill climbed back into the cart and opened a beer from our cooler.
“Let me tell you a story.” He grinned, handing me the beer. “You might need this.”
(As a quick aside, have you ever noticed that when women discuss things they tend to do it face to face but men discuss things while doing something else entirely? It’s like we must keep our hands busy.)
Back to Bill’s story, here is a short summary. On the first morning of Second Grade, Barbara did all the usual things. She explained class rules, some of the things they would be learning, handed out some workbooks and got everyone seated according to her seating chart. She thought it would be fun to have everyone introduce themselves by writing their names on the blackboard. So, all the kids lined up and wrote their names. The girl standing next to Mike wrote hers in cursive. She obviously had been practicing during the summer. Everyone else printed their name.
“Uh oh.” I murmured as I walked up onto the green to putt.
“Uh oh is right!” Bill said. “Mike just stood there and didn’t do anything. Barbara asked what was wrong. He was obviously very upset and wouldn’t even look at her.”
“I know what was wrong.” I putted and the ball went in the cup. “You owe me a quarter for the hole.”
“I know too.” Bill said tossing me the quarter, “I’m not supposed to have favorites, but Mike is one of my favorites. Anyway, Barbara thought he should step outside the classroom to calm down and she would talk to him in a minute. She didn’t want to embarrass him in front of the class.”
“Oh no.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said when she told me the story. So, Ben the counselor comes out of his office and sees Mike standing there in the hallway red faced, veins sticking out of his neck, obviously mad. He asked Mike what was wrong. Mike said he was being punished, and he didn’t do anything wrong. Ben said he was sure Barbara wouldn’t punish him for no reason…”
“Oh yeah. That helped the situation!” I pointed out and walked up onto the next tee box.
“Exactly. So Ben took Mike down to his office to calm down and talk. Barbara comes out of her room and (he paused for dramatic effect) finds that Mike has disappeared!”
I started to laugh in the middle of my downswing and sliced the ball way off into the bushes.
“Barbara is frantically looking for Mike. She looks in his old First Grade room and his teacher Mrs. Anderson asked what was up and Barbara whispers that Mike has run away. “
“Mike would never run away,” Mrs. Anderson said, “Did you check the boy’s bathroom?”
“Barbara says she did and asks the lady to watch her room while she comes down the hall to tell me Mike is missing.”
By now I am helpless with laughter. I decided to just drop the ball farther up the fairway because I couldn’t afford to lose any more balls in the bushes. Bill had me enthralled with his story.
“Barbara comes in my office and announces, ‘Mike has run away!’ Mike who? I asked her. ‘Michael OConnell,’ she says. I told her Mike would never run away, and asked if she checked the boy’s bathroom.
“By now,” Bill continued, “Barbara has invented an entire scenario in her head. She lost a child on her first day and within her first hour of teaching. A child that is her husband’s favorite. Who knows where the boy went? What if someone grabbed him? The O’Connells are nice people but they will demand she be fired and probably her husband too. We will be fired, lose our house and never get a job in any school system again and its all her fault.”
“Ouch! “ I said with a sympathetic look.
“So, as you can imagine, when she yelled, ‘Of course I checked the damn bathroom and why is everyone telling me the boy wouldn’t run away when he HAS run away!’ I understood completely.”
“Wow, that doesn’t sound like Barbara at all.”
“I went one way down the hall and she went the other. We checked everywhere and Mike was not to be found. I was just starting to panic when Ben walked out of his office.”
“Are you looking for Mike?” he asked, “He is in here. He is a little upset so I thought I should talk to him.”
“Barbara rushed in and hugged Mike like he was her first born. Poor Mike was completely confused now and looked at me for help. I told him to go with Barbara and she would explain everything and went back to my office to bang my head on my desk for a while and think about my career choices. I knew darn well he wouldn’t run away. It’s not his style.”
Bill strode triumphantly up to the hole and plucked out his ball after making a ridiculously long putt to win the hole.
“Speaking of style.” I laughed throwing the quarter back at him. “Nice putt!”
We got in the cart, and drove to the next hole. “So did Barbara get Mike to explain what happened?”
“Yes, thank God. As you and I suspected, Mike thought he was supposed to write in cursive which he hasn’t been taught yet. He got embarrassed and just shut down. He wouldn’t look at her or talk.”
“His stiff Irish neck.”
“Exactly. When Barbara sent him out of the room, he thought he was being punished, which made things even worse. Later, Mrs. Anderson tried to make her feel better by explaining that the best way to handle Mike is to ask him to do you a favor or help you and he will do it willingly. In this case, Barbara didn’t know what he was upset about but if she whispered to him that it was her first day and she didn’t know how to help him he probably would have told her what was wrong because he would feel sorry for her.”
“Mike loved Mrs. Anderson last year and so did we. She figured him out in an instant.”
“Yeah, she has been teaching First Grade for a lot of years.”
“So how is Barbara doing?”
“Well, I made her a drink when we got home and told her you guys would die of laughter about this story and then sympathize with her but I’m not sure she believed me. I checked in with her today before I came over here and she said she and Mike seem to be friends like nothing ever happened which made her happy.”
“Well, all’s well that ends well!” I replied shaking my head.
“Yup!”
About a month or so later we had parent teacher conferences. To be honest, we had forgotten about the incident which is funny because in Big Timber, a small Montana town, a saga like this would spread to every household before the end of the day. But we also forgot because Mike never brought it up and seemed to enjoy Barbara’s class. After showing us grades and saying how fun Mike was in her class she told us the story of that first day. We of course did exactly what Bill said we would. Laugh out loud and sympathized.
“I coached Jack in some gym classes.” Barbara said, “And I’ll say one thing. Mike is not Jack!”
That has been pointed out to us many times over the years. It’s like people thought we didn’t know! I wonder if they would be shocked to learn we like it that way?
Loved this story. It made me fondly remember how different all of you kids were back in the day and of course still are today!