Odd how many are finding these tales interesting. I always thought of my life as lacking any ability to make the earth tremble. Now the class ahead of me at old Pine Bluff High was full of the smart ones. Had it been integrated, it would have surely been even more outstanding. This class was full of geniuses who went to on to great heights; physicians, attorneys, business owners, craftsmen, mayors, teachers, you name it.
It was sort of like the West Point class if 1915, from which Omar Bradley and so many others graduated, that was described as "The class the stars fell on."
I can't forebear repeating a story from that class of geniuses and pranksters. It involved an old acquaintance who died last week. It seems that most of the brain-children of whom I speak took physics under a very popular teacher their senior year. I can't remember the teacher's, but never mind.
Now this is how old the story is: We used to have a morning Bible reading in homeroom class. Yes, believe it or not, we listened to, or read when it was our turn, scriptures from the Good Book. We avoided God's treatment of the Midianites as well as King David's way of hooking up with his best friend's wife. And, the entire Song of Solomon was off-limits. It made the boys giggle, and the girls fidget, too much. But the rest was fair game.
It happened one day that a substitute teacher was due for the class. The individual of whom I speak was scheduled for the scripture readings. On the way to the podium, he locked the classroom door. As he began reading, from the Book of Leviticus the story goes, the substitute came to the door. Recognizing what was happening, he politely waited.
And waited.
On an impulse, the lad continued to read. The substitute waited. And waited.
The reading continued for several minutes before the teacher softly knocked on the glass of the door. The reader gave him a scowl that indicated a sacrilege of cosmic proportions, picked up the Bible and pointed at it, and continued to read.
Here, legend becomes myth. There are subplots and additions that will never be proven. Eventually, the principal, who, it was rumored, had survived the Bataan Death March and harbored no fear of a student genius, interceded. The length of time the scripture reading filled is a subject of controversy until this day.
I'll bet, though, that there are educators all over our great country who will wish, tomorrow morning, that harmless pranks by student over-achievers would be their greatest fear. May we all hope for a day when that will be true again in America.
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