Her given name may have been Mary or Ruth or maybe Jane; I do not remember. I recall only that her surname was Cox. She was in her 30’s, I think; I was eight or perhaps nine. While my mother was a slight lady no taller than 5’4”, Ms. Cox was a stocky brunette who towered at 6’, if I remember correctly. That said, when we are children, all adults seem to tower above us.
I recall at least one grade school misadventure that involved passing notes. That event occurred years after my being in Ms. Cox’s class. I think that the infraction was set in motion by that semester in Ms. Cox’s class years earlier.
During my grade-school years, corporal punishment was common. Both of my parents worked during the day, and they did not want their workdays interrupted by calls from the school regarding my behavioral issues. It was easier to just grant the school permission to use whatever disciplinary means that the teacher and principal thought appropriate. In the case of Ms. Cox, that meant Excalibur – the name she had given to a hickory paddle that she had commissioned for classroom use. She introduced our class to Excalibur at the start of the semester.
Excalibur and my backside became acquainted early during that semester, and after a while, it must have become clear to Ms. Cox, that neither the threat nor reality of any bodily injury that she could inflict would be sufficient to keep me from doing whatever it was that she thought needed physical punishment. I had already lived through worse in my own home.
One day, Ms. Cox was giving a lesson. As she walked up and down the aisles of her students’ desks, she made a slight pause as she walked past mine. She placed a small piece of folded paper on my desktop. That was my introduction to passing notes.
I sequestered the note, and when I finally opened it later that day, I discovered that it said, “Your proboscis is of such magnitude that it makes me shudder.” I took the note home and asked my parents what it meant. They pointed me to the dictionary, and I eventually understood that she was telling me that my nose was so big that she found it alarming. I laughed at the thought; her nose was much bigger than mine!
I don’t remember what I responded, but I used the dictionary to translate my response from the vocabulary of an eight-year-old to something more sophisticated. The next morning, I left Ms. Cox a small, folded note on her desk. The rest of the semester, Ms. Cox and I exchanged taunts and insults, and even the occasional complement as little notes written on folded bits of paper. Excalibur and my backside had no further reason to meet.
From time to time, I think of Ms. Cox who has certainly passed from this world. In those moments, I also think that physical punishment is a sad alternative to kindness and understanding. Ms. Cox did finally understand that, and she helped me to understand it as well.