Two Items on the Same Desk Essay Example for Free

Two Items on the Same Desk Essay The first six weeks of school are always a joy . They are the spring time of teaching. The last six weeks? Those weeks can be, in the immortal words of Thomas Paine, â€Å"The times that try mens souls.† Those are the days when teachers consider retirement regardless of whether theyve been teaching for three years or thirty. Mr. Hemphill was nearing the 30 year mark. Today Mr. Hemphill, as students always called him to his face, felt more like the â€Å"old Mr. Hemphill† he knew students often called him behind his back. Not quite 60, his friends, all of whom referred to him as just â€Å"Bob,† often commented on how young and fit he appeared for a man his age. To the high school students at Olympus High he was ancient. Ninety percent of the other teachers were youngsters under 40, most under thirty. â€Å"How old are you?† he was often asked. â€Å"Older than you can imagine,† hed reply. â€Å"I used to teach Shakespeare.† â€Å"You still teach it; we read Romeo and Juliet first semester.† â€Å"No, no,† he would grin. â€Å"I used to teach Shakespeare the MAN. Thats why he uses so many puns in his plays.† Mr. Hemphill never gave a quiz or test without including a bonus question, always a pun of some kind. He didnt feel very punny today. He just felt tired, weary to the bone. On his now cleared, moments earlier cluttered desk, were two items. The first was the true source of his fatigue. Seventh (the final) period of his day Mr. Hemphill had been doing his best to lead a literary discussion with a class of 38 students. Most of them hadn’t read the mere seven pages of the novel hed assigned for homework and upon which the discussion was about. Suddenly a piece of paper floated into the air from somewhere in the middle of the room, and past three or four desks. It lighted softly as a tiny bird at his feet. He picked it up. The paper, which had floated like a bird, was as welcome to Mr. Hemphill as bird poop. Indeed, the less euphemistic form of the word â€Å"poop† came to mind as he saw what was on the paper. In graphic, splendidly detailed tagger art color was a picture of a penis and scrotum on a skateboard. Mr. Hemphill commented on the quality of the art and expressed his wish that the author would channel his obvious talents in a more productive manner. What he almost said was that the artist must surely have spent hours and hours studying and handling his subject in order to depict it so 2. accurately. He didnt say it however because Mr. Hemphill in his core saw himself as a professional. His clothes, though not expensive, were ironed and neat, his shoes polished. The years hed spent in front of classrooms had taught him losing his temper was not professional. More importantly, it did you no good. He had taken a copy of the paper to the vice principal with the names of those he was certain were responsible. To the class as a whole he expressed his disappointment that some of them who had such grand potential for greatness were choosing to waste it on depravity. He meant it too and said it with great sincerity. A few looked as if they agreed with him. Several others, and probably the ones responsible, snickered albeit surreptitiously. â€Å"They think Im just an old, old guy from another planet,† he thought at the time. When he looked at the item now he felt disappointment once again, and anger, most definitely, and hurt. For some reason it definitely hurt. Of course it most likely had not been meant for him. It had a boys name on it, Nick ________, and it was likely a gang thing. When a gang member gives a guy a picture of a male private part it is a message. Hes calling the guy out, insulting him, asking him what hes going to do about it. Sometimes a gang guy draws a picture of the female equivalent. That is a worse insult, and implies the recipient wont or cant do anything about it because he’s just a P______. â€Å"Dont judge these guys† Mr. Hemphill told himself. â€Å"You dont know what the house or apartment they go home to is like. You dont know whats been done to them, what happens on their block, in their hood every day.† â€Å"Now why did they pose the penis on a skateboard?† he asked himself. The skateboard could be said to add an element of humor to the drawing. Humor to the deprived and ignorant who felt any fellow who farted was funny. But humor reflects that there is humanity somewhere in there. Maybe divinity too? Mr. Hemphill shrugged, and sighed, and turned the distasteful drawing over. Next to it was a letter from a former student, Sean. Hed found Mr. Hemphill earlier that day at break and came up to him to give him the letter. The letter wasnt to Mr. Hemphill. It was a letter to a college he was applying to. He was supposed to tell the college a little about himself and why he would be a great student to accept. Though the letter wasnt to Mr. Hemphill, the first half of it was all about him. â€Å"I owe my knowledge and ever-lasting developing love of the Literary Arts to Mr. Hemphill† the letter said. â€Å"He taught me the power stories have, and helped me learn the basic skills every writer needs. Because of him hopefully I will be able one day to consider myself a successful screen writer.† Mr. Hemphill re-read those lines three times savoring every word. He remembered Sean as he had looked as a freshmen. Short, pudgy, big glasses. It was a clichà © perhaps, but at first glance Mr. 3. Hemphill had thought that if he had a book of slang and looked up the word, â€Å"nerd† Seans photo would be beside the definition. He was smart and determined and wanted to learn. Sean wasnt as short or pudgy any more. He was starting to look like a handsome, confident young man. He would come into his own in college. â€Å"I didnt teach him anything, not really,† Mr. Hemphill reflected, â€Å"I just steered him a little.† What were the odds of receiving both these items on the same day? Mr. Hemphill remembered the year hed had Sean, his freshmen year. In the fall while he was absent and had a sub, some students who werent his students came to his fourth period pretending to be his students. Two of them distracted the substitute while the others stole some things off and in his desk. Somebody even snatched a big Muhammad Ali poster hed had on the wall for years. â€Å"Im so fast when I turn off the light switch on the wall, I can go jump into bed before its dark!† Ali said on the poster. Hemphill had used it for years to instruct students about hyperbole, and pride. The worst thing about the incident was that they took his pencil can. It wasnt worth anything, but it was something his oldest daughter had made for him when she was in kindergarten or first grade. Shed put paper around a small can and drawn hearts all over it, and it said, â€Å"I love you daddy† on it. Hemphill kept it on his desk with pencils in it for years. Every time he looked at it he remembered the way his Samantha, now a young mother, had looked the day she gave it to him. Why had they stolen that? Eventually the guilty students got ratted out and punished, but the stolen items were forever lost. Spring of that same year in his sixth period students got together and bought him a big brand new Muhammad Ali poster, nicer than the other one. They had gotten a card and all the students signed it and presented it to him during finals week. Those were the worst and the best things students had ever done to or for Mr. Hemphill throughout his whole career. They had happened during the same school year. These two items on the desk happened during the same school day. Looking at the two items, the gross picture and the letter were a dà ©jà  vu of that previous school year. The two items in a way represented of all the days and all the years he had been a public school teacher. How many of his students’ fathers had pencil can mementos on their desks? How many of his students, if asked to write an essay or a quick write about a hero, someone they admired, would turn in a blank sheet of paper? He remembered that he had asked to go to this school in this part of town. He’d started out at Capital High where students came from the town’s nicer neighborhoods and most of the parents had jobs. Innocent and idealistic, he’d wanted to go where he could combat ignorance and be a â€Å"light in the darkness.† After 30 years the idealism still smoldered in his heart. When that flame went out it would be time to quit. 4. Mr. Hemphill pushed himself away from his desk. Along the side wall uncorrected papers mounted up in little baskets. They would have to wait. He was too tired today to correct papers. Mr. Hemphill walked to the back window. There he looked out at the blue sky. He placed his hand over his heart, and then flung the hand outward like a fishermen who has just cleaned a fish and then flings the raw guts out into the open sea. It was a ritual started when his kids were small, a way to not carry the cares of the day home in the evening. Then he went home. He looked forward to kissing his wife and listening to his youngest daughter, a high school senior, tell him about her day. When he left the room one of the items on his desk was now in the waste basket beside the door. The other was inside his grade book tucked under his arm, gripped tightly beside his heart.