Monday, June 25, 2012

F - A - T-square


Dad didn't do well in school, from second grade through high school he only did well in one class, Drafting. 

Dad told me that he loved that class and was sure he was going to get an A finally after so many years of disappointments and summer school.  He was down to his last project and he was doing it perfectly.  While he was at the drafting table in school working diligently another boy, who never much liked Dad walked by.  Dad's nemesis took this opportunity to jostle his arm.  It was a stupid, yet simple thing to do.

It was Dad's right arm and at the jostling his hand holding the writing instrument drove across the page, marking it indelibly.  I don't know if it was a pencil or a pen but I got the impression that the swath it made across the page would not have been erasable regardless of the instrument.

Dad flew into a rage and with the T-square already in hand he beat the boy with it.  It not only assured him of a failing grade in the class, but I believe a suspension.

It's hard to believe with all the scholastic accolades he earned in the Military and the Police, and how everyone remembers Dad as a great teacher; that he ever had such a hard time in school.  Maybe it was because he had such a hard time that he knew how to help others learn.

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