Pulled this from the drawer in anticipation of another goose hunt still to come. That is if we can stay out of the twisters that may greet us on Wednesday, the day we leave for Arkansas…
When it came time to move from the compound in Guntersville I was in a state of denial. Denial about what this land has meant to me. I started a new job teaching history to ninth graders, but this time they were not Gadsden’s upper crust’s progeny which was more like the chicken pot pie crust at KFC— a bit too flaky. The students I am teaching now are being educated in the largest public school in Gadsden. It is 7A and its demographics were the most complex I had personally ever experienced. From the nearly all-white elementary and middle school in Birmingham that I attended until transferring in ninth grade to a boarding school in Tennessee, I had never experienced the kind of diversity I was confronted by while teaching ninth graders world history at Gadsden City High. In hindsight it was really good for my development as a full fledged human embedded in the American experience.
I thought “Locally Hated” was the most challenging case of apathy I would ever encounter. How wrong I was when I stood out in my door-way on the night of the open house greeting the salt-of-the-Earth folks that came out at five-thirty directly after their work concluded at occupations like Tyson chicken plant. I saw eight parents out of seventy that could not find a way. There is a name plate next to my door that read: “Agricola.” Two black parents walked by my name and said, “We use to live on Agricola Street.” I thought to myself, “yes, I work for you now.”
That sounds terrible, but it had been one of those kind of weeks. I have this student that has been trying to push my boundaries and finesse freedom from me to engage in all types of ludicrous shenanigans in my classroom. The Friday before the week of purgatorial liminality I was experiencing drove me to write again, we were watching a film called, Don Quixote: The Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha. This student looked and acted the part of “zero-fucks-given;” in fact, he mastered the art of it. Before my own windmill giant materialized in that classroom, I was teaching the students that classical reverence for epic literature influenced much of Renaissance humanism. I asked foolishly, “has anybody ever heard or seen The Iliad?” I realized by their silenced dumb expressions that they were unsure. I said, “Can anyone give an example of an epic movie?” The outlaw said, “Friday.” His response was full of the hubris of someone that would later vape his way through my screening of Don Quixote. He was pretty sly about covering half his face under his shirt. I was too naive because of the Gadsden City mask ordinance, so I was just pleased his face was covered, until I saw vapor protruding from under the collar of his Tupac shirt. It was the second time he had worn the shirt in two weeks. I knew this because I had previously tried to reach him by asking him whether “the album Machiavelli was a primary or secondary source,” to which he responded, “Can I go to the bathroom?”
After I caught him vaping I waited twenty minutes to keep my options open on how to handle it. After that time I called him out in the hall and told him that “he is too smart to go to alternative school.” I told the administrator on my hall the next Monday that the 17- year- old- ninth- grader was vaping in my class. Three days later he had an outburst exclaiming he “would slap the shit out of someone.” I said firmly, “You wont talk to my students that way.” He obfuscated, “what did I say?” It was a cap. This generation always caps. “You just said I’ll slap the shit out of you” I said. “No I didn’t. I said I would slap the dog shit out of you.” His girlfriend across the room encouraged the behavior when she said, “I just peed a little.” I walked him to an administrator’s office, but the principal was gone. I told him, “wait here for the administrator to return.” He followed me back to the classroom. I couldn’t let him win. I would lose the class. I had seen it before.
I went to the gym and worked out. I made it back to school just in time for open house with the parents. I was unprepared for the open house because my planning block was consumed by my being compelled to take the teacher’s class across the hall from me, because she contracted covid and had been out all week. My uncle Tom who is in a wheelchair since he was a teenager also got Covid this week, and his wife Lou Anne. The virus affected her more severely than it did Tom, and she remains in the ICU. (She made it out. Thank the Lord)
The evangelical Christian school I taught in before coming to Gadsden City High afforded me many opportunities to chide Trump youth, but that doesn’t mean my own ignorance did not sometimes get in the way. One time during a Vietnam powerpoint presentation assignment a kid focused his project entirely around the Cu-chi tunnels simply because he wanted to say “Cu-Chi” repeatedly in front of a room full of prim Christian girls. Like a complete dumbass I asked him if he had done that on purpose not realizing that Cu-Chi was historically accurate terminology.
At the 2021 open house the chicken farmer was talking to me about his child before any of the other parents arrived. He wanted to ensure that I would keep politics out of my lectures. Then a well-to-do black family with a bright student sat down on the front row. The chicken farmer sat down in the middle as a kind of peanut gallery. I face planted when the grandmother asked, “Exactly, what kind of history will you be teaching?” With all the discourses about critical race theory and its removal I overthought the situation and said, “ Well, we start in Europe with the renaissance and move to reformation next.” That was all I had had time to plan. I then attempted to answer her expression rather than her question. I said, “We deal with imperialism in Africa and Asia, but will be avoiding many issues of race as this is World History.” I hate that I answered this way. Next semester I will be sure to include segments on Mansa Musa, or highlight Ethiopian resistance to Italian imperialism. I was influenced by the white chicken farmer somehow in this moment. I was pandering to him rather than listening to this lady’s question. “That is not what I am asking,” she said shaking her head in discouraged exasperation at this foolish white man now teaching her granddaughter.
The outlaw later escaped in- school- suspension and came to my class and tried to finesse me again. Today I heard him say, “I’ll cut ya boy.” I said, “What?” He said, “I am country boy I fish.” I was relieved when my buddy Dude called and said, “let’s go shoot some geese tomorrow morning. It’s opening day.” I could hunt chicken plant slough and still make it to the compound to help my sister and father pack up artifacts in Guntersville. I was exhausted but I really wanted to shoot some birds. Dude was pretty creative and he said in parting: “What should we call this mission? You pick it.” I said, “Which war? You pick that.” Dude couldn’t decide between Vietnam or World War II, so I said simply: “Cu-Chi-Overlord.” It was decided. On the Saturday following the nightmares of Hurricane Ida, Afghanistan withdrawal, Covid pandemic, and systemic racism would all be forgotten momentarily while we lob steel BB shot projectiles in the air in the hopes of dropping some geese into the Coosa’s silty stained waters. Geese meat is fine when cooked like filet mignon, and if meat can be harvested then all is not wrong with the world. I grabbed some reading just in case they failed to fly.