If any of you that are reading this remember Miss Quirk, I think you will understand that I had a problem with her. I don’t remember what her title was, or if she had a self made title.
I do remember that she taught penmanship and I suffered her wrath with a ruler on my hand. I was angry and embarrassed, but did not tell my mother, I remembered what Mother had said about being disciplined in school and I figured I could do better at writing cursive. The crack on my knuckles only happened once so either I got better at writing skills or she was in a better mood from then on.
She always wore what they called nylons in those days with seams in them. She was so skinny that the nylons and the seams wavered on her legs. That used to fascinate me and I found myself watching her legs as she walked up and down the rows of desks in the classroom.
One day she came to me and ordered me, Miss Quirk never asked, to make coffee for the Parent Teacher Conference. She did not tell me that the meeting was going to be in the evening. So she told me how much coffee and where the coffee pot in the basement was located. She could have gotten the coffee started in the amount of time that it took for her to tell me how to do it.
When I got to the basement I made the coffee. Whew, the roof blew off the school, she let me have it with both barrels and proceeded to tell me that the meeting wasn’t until evening and generally how stupid I was. If I remember correctly she didn’t call me stupid, clever of her, wasn’t it.
Not only didn’t you tell your mother – you didn’t tell your brother either! First time I’ve ever heard the knuckle wrapping story, Sis. You sure you weren’t doing something other than writing crappy?
ReplyDeleteMy first trip through Lincoln school, Miss Quirk was the third grade teacher. Whew!! I lucked out ‘cause I was one of the cute little Kindergarden kids so I certainly couldn’t do anything wrong.
On my next trip through Lincoln, Miss Quirk was the principle. I was in third grade. My cuteness had faded, and Miss Quirk had developed an attitude! Some day I’ll tell MY Miss Quirk story!