Eddie

Little boys used to wear flannel shirts to school. You know the kind that buttoned up the front and also at the cuffs. Eddie was a little kid I had in class, maybe my very first class, and I remember him for two particular reasons.

No one ever told me to be prepared for fathers in handle-bar mustaches. Yes, Eddie's father came to parent conference sporting this huge mustache curled up at the ends. I was a young thing at the time, twenty-two at the most. I was so taken off-guard that I spent the entire conference looking down at my desk.

One morning I heard whimpering. Eddie was sitting in the back of the classroom obviously in distress but I couldn't tell why until I walked to his seat. Somehow he had worked both of his bony little arms through one of his shirt cuffs and it was buttoned so tightly that he couldn't get loose. He was literally hand-cuffed, sitting there at his desk. I asked Eddie if he wanted me to try to get the cuff unbuttoned but I couldn't budge it. The school nurse had to come and cut the button off. Poor Eddie, two very awkward situations!!