My Good Friend....

There has been many times over the years I have called Rhea or she has called me and one of us has said, "Well, I have you beat today, you will not be able to top this!'

One day Rhea called me while she was working in OK for Phillips. She had gotten a call from the sectary at the high school where Bear, Rhea's youngest child, was in High School. Upon hearing who was calling Rhea asked what was wrong....The sectary said Bear was not in any trouble today but their long distance had not been working properly so since she knew Rhea's work number by heart they were calling her to check out the school phone...

After my post about Teachers I got this email from Rhea...I just have to post it. Donita is older than my Kristina so the story is old but I just have to share...I think Rhea has me beat on this one...here was her email...

I just read your blog for today about teachers. I totally agree with you. I remember when Donita was in sixth grade, and Donita was certainly NEVER a problem. She had a man teacher ( I took out the teachers name since Rhea still has to live there!) for the first time, and he was ill and old and needed to retire. He yelled at the kids all the time, but never at Donita, but she was scared to death that he would, and she'd be humiliated, which as you know would never have bothered Jamie. In fact, Jamie was quite the opposite and delighted in getting teachers' attention. One day Donita went up Mr. (blocked out) desk to get help on a paper. She laid the paper on his lesson plan book and proceeded to write on her paper at his instruction. The lesson plan book was the kind that had carbon paper, so when she wrote on her paper, it came through on the carbon. Donita immediately realized what she'd done and was afraid she'd get in trouble. She asked to stay in at recess and work on her paper. The teacher was a smoker, and she could be trusted in the classroom alone, so he let her stay in the room by herself so he could go smoke with the assistant principal, Mr. Barton. She was so afraid of getting in trouble for making marks on his lesson plan book, so she tore out the page behind the carbon paper and ATE IT! She ended up getting sick, probably because she felt so guilty about what she had done, not from eating the paper. At the time, I was working at the high school, and the nurse (Megan Walls, a "friend" of yours) called me to come get her. She had told Megan what she'd done, and Megan was appalled. Needless to say, I was livid that Donita was so afraid of a teacher that she'd eat a piece of paper rather than get yelled at in front of the class. I truly don't think he would have said anything to her, but she thought he would. Of course, since I worked for the school system, they all knew me well, especially the grade school principal. We had a meeting with the principal, teacher, the nurse along with Donita. The teacher was so apologetic and told Donita that he would never yell at HER because she was such a good girl and it as an accident. He went out of his way to be extremely nice to her after that. He had a stroke (probably from all the smoking and yelling) in the classroom before the end of the year and had to quit teaching. I saw him in the grocery store just last week and didn't recognize him at first. He is really old and pitiful looking -- can hardly get around and is on oxygen (probably still smoking). He asked about the girls, so he remembers.....I'm sure he will never forgot Donita eating a piece of paper because she was afraid of getting yelled at, not to mention her mother who was not afraid to yell at a teacher.