As my first and second grade teachers before her, Miss Kelly made going to school each day an adventure. My adventures took place at Addison Elementary School in Palo Alto. That was when Addison was a two story, sandstone building that, shortly after I graduated, was deemed utterly unsafe due to the likelihood that it would crumble to the ground if there was an earthquake. My ignorance was my bliss.
Third grade is (or was...they probably tackle this during two weeks in kindergarten nowadays) the year for learning cursive. It amazes me how certain moments remain emblazoned in my memory. The day Miss Kelly taught us the cursive capital D held one of those moments. She was wearing a white sailor blouse with blue piping and a big, square collar. She stood before us at the blackboard (that in my memory was green) at the place on the big board where the horizontal stripes with the dotted line in the middle was pre-painted as a guide for printing and for cursive.
Yes, Miss Kelly was about having fun while learning. Picture her with her dark hair in a Peter Pan cut and her pleated skirt swaying as she sang us a little waltz melody while creating the joyous cursive D.... daaa-da-da-daaa da-da-DEE-da-daa. Wonderful!
Come December that year, one morning Miss Kelly approached me before class and drew me aside. Would I be willing to dress up as Santa Claus that morning and BE Santa for the two kindergarten classes? Would I ever!! Oh, yes, Miss Kelly. During the first recess I went into the cloakroom where Miss Kelly gave me the red and white outfit to put on. The whole thing was, of course, too big for me, but I gamely made it work by cinching the wide black belt just under my padded tummy and stuffing newspaper into the big black boots. Yes, there was a snowy wig and a hat and wire rim glasses. At the last moment we both realized that there wasn't a beard, and we both knew that was necessary. I was trying to be very efficient so that my classmates wouldn't see me as they returned from recess. I thought they'd be jealous that Miss Kelly picked me and that just wouldn't do.
Miss Kelly danced out of the classroom on a mission and returned shortly (from the school nurse's room?) with a great quantity of cotton wool.We just needed a way of sticking it to my cheeks to get the full Santa look.
Drat, the end-of-recess bell rang. Needing to be on hand to greet the class, Miss Kelly had to think fast. Here, she said, would this do? Carefully taking the jar of rubber cement from her beautiful hand, I assured her that everything would be fine. As she started the class, I feverishly applied the rubber cement to my face. Quite an odor, but anything for Miss Kelly! I used a lot and made that cotton beard really stick.
Eyes watering but full of pride I snuck out of the cloakroom (yah, weird name), just pausing in the doorway long enough to give Miss Kelly the okay sign before I scurried off to the kindergarten. My memory of my performance is that I did just fine. But maybe I was high on the fumes.
When I returned to the 3rd grade classroom, the other kids were thankfully busy with a writing exercise so I could slip in and then slip out of my costume. Carefully hanging everything back up as I'd found it, I was glowing with pride at my having pleased my beloved teacher.
Soon I was to discover that I was glowing not so much from pride as from the reaction of my tender skin to having this industrial strength glue slathered all over my face. The cotton was very hard to pull off. And then my cheeks were bright pink and puffy, with lots of cotton wisps clinging all over my swollen countenance. I don't think I realized how awful I looked until Miss Kelly came back to check on me. She got down on her knees in front of me, fervently trying to pluck the wisps away, but clearly horrified at the effect of the rubber cement. I think she was fighting back tears. And there I stood, using every ounce of the little man in me to reassure her that everything was fine.
I don't know how many of my brain cells were killed off by the fumes, but my heart grew a size that day.