The Fence

The Fence

The Fence

Sometimes you get into big trouble for things you were not directly responsible for. When this happens it may not be best to grin and bear it, rather than rat out a good buddy. Here is my story to illustrate this.

The Fence

In September of 1955, I was living with my Mom and Dad in a company house in Phillips, Texas. I was twelve years old in the sixth grade at Philips Junior High School. On this particular day I was over at my cousins house about four miles from my house. My cousin Ricky was the same age as me and in the same class as me at school, and my cousin Scott was 9 years old in the fourth grade. We were very close and spent a lot of time together during our younger years. We decided to walk from their house to my house and headed out on our adventure. Our trek took us right by the Phillips school system. It so happened that the Phillips High School football team played the Canyon Eagles the next night at home. We found some chalk on the the ground and decided support our team by writing some words of support for our team on the fence behind the wood shop building. Ricky and I wrote “Phillips beat Canyon” and “Blackhawks beat the Eagles”. We couldn’t see what Scott was writing, but in the meantime the wood shop teacher, who lived right behind the school, showed up in his pickup. He knew us from Boy Scouts and he said you boys report the Principals office first thing tomorrow morning. We then saw what Scott had written on the fence, “Phillips Stomp the Hell Out of Canyon” “Blackhawks Beat the Shit Out of the Eagles”, and we knew we may be in some serious trouble. We sweated all night and hoped by some miracle the ordeal would just disappear. But, we showed up at the Principals office and there waiting for us was the Principal and each of our respective teachers. They got a bucket of water and some rags and we headed for the fence. When we got there, mine and Ricky’s teacher (same class) said “Are there any more vulgarities written on the fence? You older boys should be ashamed for corrupting that younger boy.” We washed the fence and headed back to the Principals office. Scott got a couple of light swats and he was sent back to his room. Then the Principal, who was a very stout woman, pulled out this large wooden paddle and gave Ricky and I ten hard licks on the butt. With our butts stinging to high heaven, we headed back to our room. We didn’t want to show any weakness to the other kids so we came back into the room smiling. That was a mistake as our teacher said ” Go back to the Principals office and tell her you didn’t receive enough punishment.” So we did and she gave us each ten more hard licks. This time when we went back into the room, we worked out a few tears and the ordeal was over. Neither Ricky nor myself held too much animosity towards Scott for getting us into trouble, but I sure wish he would have gotten at least ten hard licks. We never told anyone at the school that it was Scott who wrote all the bad stuff on the fence.

 

All you Teachers out there remember, things aren’t always as they may seem. So don’t jump to conclusions without fully investigating. The following toon describes the feeling i had towards our teacher on that particular day.