Requiem for a Math Teacher

There was a discussion on Facebook the other day about an incident which I witnessed when I was in the ninth grade. The family had moved to Chillicothe, Ohio from the Cleveland area less than six months previously. While in Cleveland in the seventh and eighth grade, we were taught math from a curriculum developed in one of the local school systems. When we moved to Chillicothe, I eventually came to the conclusion that we were being taught the equivalent of Algebra II in our classroom in Cleveland.

So, I was assigned to take Algebra I in a classroom in an older junior high school along with people I knew little about. One morning, the teacher dropped dead. Plain and simple. The teacher dropped dead. Here, forty six years later, the incident came up on Facebook. I left a link to the first chapter of a book I had written which dealt with the incident. Since the link to Tumblr didn't pan out for some of those people, I am re-posting the story here on my blog. Enjoy:

The Seed

Dreary.

Except for the prospect of attending the annual football grudge match between Magnolia and Pomeroy, Dan Stevens’ morning was dreary. He was already having trouble understanding Mr. Tate’s introduction to algebra class and it was only the first week of school. Dan copied some incomprehensible scribble on the blackboard while his teacher was on his way to explain the problem one on one with him.

Dan didn’t quite understand why Richard Tate was face down on the floor next to his desk, his body twitching while life ebbed out of it.

Dan sat helpless while the world around him swirled into action. Jim Carter almost immediately bolted from his seat and running pell-mell to the school office to report the emergency. Several screams erupted from different parts of the room. In moments, most of the students were out of their seats, either leaving the room or gathering transfixed at the body in the middle of the classroom.

In less than two minutes, students were being ushered out into the hallway while the school nurse and several of the other teachers rushed in, only to be just as helpless as Dan and his classmates. Sirens from the squad were heard, coming in from the firehouse on the north end of Magnolia.

Dan closed his eyes. “This is death,” he thought. He took a deep breath. It seemed to him that somehow the spirit of the man lying next to him touched him momentarily. “It’s okay to let go.”

Dan felt the soft touch of a woman’s fingers on his elbow. “We need to go, now. The squad needs room to work. It’s all right.”

Once clear of the confusion in the room, he realized that Miss Elston, the history teacher, had led him out just before the ambulance people came in. “Live life to the fullest,” she advised him later that year. “You never know when you’ll be called home.”

The funeral was held the following Wednesday afternoon. School dismissed early so Mr. Tate’s students could attend. Reverend Kellough from the Community Baptist Church conducted the service. After the funeral, Dan went to the Pastor’s Study to ask the old preacher why.

Pastor invited the young man in.  The room was dominated by a large oak desk sitting parallel to a wall stacked floor to ceiling with books. Off to Dan’s right was a low credenza with a coffee pot along with several cups for visitors to use. To the left was a window overlooking a small parking lot.

“Please, have a seat.”

There was a pair of large chairs framed in wood, upholstered in leather, facing the imposing desk. Dan sat in the chair on the left.

“I understand that you were next to Richard when he died.”

“Mister Tate? Yes sir. I was there.”

Pastor smiled. “He was a good man. He worked hard to provide for his family. Unfortunately, he worked almost too hard. You know that he would teach nights at the prison in Chillicothe, don’t you?”

“No sir, I did not.”

“It’s okay.  It was his time.  You never know when you’ll be called home. You need to live your life to its fullest.”

They talked for the better part of an hour. The only reason they stopped was that the pastor had to preach at the regular Wednesday evening service.

Daniel Stevens took the advice to heart. There was a spark in him which would not quit. He may have earned the reputation of being a hellion during the next four years of his life, but he was also blessed with good sense – perhaps even with better luck. Pastor’s study became his refuge when he was genuinely troubled.

“There are three things in life which will always be true,” Pastor would keep telling him. “For one, there will always be taxes. Second of all, we will all eventually die. Finally, wherever we go in life, we will inevitably come right back here to Magnolia.”

“Right…” Daniel would always reply. “When I get out of high school, I am so out of this burg that it’ll make your head spin.”

The Reverend Ezra Kellough would just smile. He knew what would happen. It was only a matter of time.

(By the way, Mr. Tate was the name of my math teacher at Middleburg Heights Junior High in the seventh and eighth grade before we moved.  Be Seeing You!)

The Homoginization of America

Well, I'm back home after spending a week on the road to attend a wedding up in Ohio. My niece and her long-time boyfriend finally decided to tie the knot. It was a happy occasion, complete with bagpipes, dancing, wedding cake and a free-flow of alcohol. The better half and I spent five days on the road, touching parts of eight states which, as far as I could tell, looked pretty much the same.

I blame it on the homoginization of America.

Two news items caught my eye which seem to reinforce the notion. For one, the company which absorbed the Budweiser people made noises about absorbing the Miller people. For the other, the large radio conglomerate Clear Channel changed its name to I (heart) Radio.

Well, I (heart) radio, too, but I have for years loved my radio stations because they were all quite different from each other. When I got into radio some years ago, there were essentially two local stations in town, WBEX and WCHI. WBEX had an FM counterpart which, when I started there, ran elevator music on a couple of huge reel-to-reel tapes which needed to be changed every once in a while. Not long after I got there, we had a fellow come in who decided that instead of elevator music, we should play "country" music on the FM. The AM stations essentially ran the same programming, except with different people doing the announcing. WCHI was a daytimer - running sunrise to sunset... WBEX ran 1,000 watts in the day and 250 watts at night, usually signing off at eleven thirty or so.

Then, everything changed.

About 10-15 years ago, all of the local radio stations were purchased by Clear Channel, including a stand-alone FM which had popped up twenty years earlier. Now, everything is run out of the same building using mostly the same air talent - two guys - who put on different hats on different times. Efficient, sure. Both men in question still have the same voice they did when I was working with them back in the '90's and God love them both. They're moderately well taken care of and they will undoubtedly enjoy their pensions when they finally retire.

That being said, WBEX and WCHI sound quite a bit like other "local" radio stations run by the group formerly known as Clear Channel. I know, I tuned in similar Clear Channel stations on the way up and on the way back to Ohio. There are certain set formats which are shared, so the radio stations in Chillicothe, Ohio sound an awful lot like radio stations in West Virginia, in Kentucky, in Indiana... and so on and so forth. One format I've heard almost everywhere was something called JACK. Again, the same music is on the same stations from coast to coast at the same time, leading to sheer boredom, especially on long drives. The economy of scale takes away the uniqueness which used to be part of the many small, independent radio stations out there competing for the ear of the listener.

We have become homoginized in our listening habits.

The day of the fellow spinning records on a remote in the front window of a supermarket is gone. Local people getting on the air to sell used household items very seldom get airplay any more. Those days are missed by this blogger. Instead of unique voices for unique communities, radio has become a single voice from coast to coast, owned by stockholders who could probably care less about the communities they supposedly serve.

The fellows I told you about in Chillicothe... I maintain them as friends. I know other people who work for Clear Channel whom I like as friends. I am also loathe to be too critical of I (heart) radio, especially since I was given some air time in the past week to help create a demand for my writing. Those who know me know how I feel about the gradual disappearance of locally owned and operated radio. Saving Magnolia touches on that theme. I would hope that the situation would change sometime in the future, but I ain't holding my breath.

So I guess that I'll attempt to stick out like a sore thumb.

Be Seeing You!

Hello Again!

Hello again.

Here it is, nearly a year after my last entry into this blog and I'm back at it again. I have two blogs, this one and another which has been ignored for an even longer period of time.

I'll stick with this one for the time being.

Let me start by introducing myself. Rather, let me start by introducing myself again. My name is bdharrell. A bit unconventional, for sure, but it is what it is. Legally, I am someone else. For the purposes of this blog I am bdharrell.

It's a marketing gimmick, you see.

Actually, it's a moniker I have used off and on for over 40 years.  Most of that time I have incorporated punctuation into the moniker: b.d.harrell, in the same way that e.e.cummings did and got away with it.

The reason I'm using bdharrell has to do with my writing. I am establishing a brand, you see... something which sets me apart in an increasingly cacophonous world.

From this point, I could go into a full-bore selling mode, telling you about the books and the stories I've written, but there's time enough for that at a later date. What I am doing instead is getting you, the reader, to become acquainted with me. When you get to know me, you may want to know more about what I've written and what I am currently writing. If you are going to make a purchase at some point, you would be more likely to make that purchase from someone you know instead of from someone you don't.

So let's get started.

Hello again.

You might be wondering why the title of this blog - ...and all the records you can eat. This goes back to my days as a radio disc jockey. I worked for many years as a radio announcer at several stations in southeastern Ohio and western West Virginia, struggling to make a living while making a fool of myself. One of the people I worked with, a fellow named Steve Crabtree, described the sort of subsistence radio wages we were receiving at the time as being "Minimum wage and all the records we can eat". Very few of the radio people from my era achieved any measure of stability save from some combination of talent and sheer luck which has served them in good stead. The one thing we did have was a measure of status in the communities where we worked. There's always someone who remembers us, even years after the fact.

Several years ago, I was working as a sales drone at a major national retailer. I was talking with a couple about a large sale when the woman noted that I had a radio voice. I told her that I had worked on the air for a number of years. She asked if I had worked locally (Dallas, Texas area). I told her no.  I worked at radio stations in Ohio. She smiles and tells me that she remembers hearing me when I was on WBEX in Chillicothe, Ohio!  At that point I was at least a thousand miles and a dozen years removed from the last time I had had a gig there.

Anyhoo, I am an ex-radio person doing relatively well for myself and living on the outskirts of Dallas. (As a matter of fact, I am less than 10 miles from the ranch used for the exterior shots for the TV series.) Radio doesn't just disappear from one's blood, though. We tend to listen to other radio people and read what they write. Garrison Keillor and Tom Bodette ("We'll leave the light on for you!) are great storytellers, both with successful books which I have been in the process of emulating. I've also read Jan Karon's stories about Father Tim up in the hills of North Carolina. All three authors use small towns as settings for their stories about life in general. Much of what I'm doing is mostly the same. Instead of Alaska, Minnesota or North Carolina, the stories I've written are centered in southern Ohio in a small town I've name Magnolia.

Now I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, I've explained who I am.  I'll tell you a little more about me in later posts. Yes, it has been a long time since I have been on these pages, but hopefully I will make it up to you by allowing you to walk with me on a journey I am about to take. In the next few weeks, I will be introducing you to Magnolia, Ohio and some pretty interesting people. In the meantime,

Be Seeing You!
bdharrell