Morning Thoughts

 October 17, 2026

My thoughts of a Saturday morn.

She existed, but we didn’t know why. The other classmates knew her by Betty but none of us had ever passed as much as the time of day with her. She rode the school bus with an assortment of rural kids. Most remained anonymous. We paid them no attention, having other things to amuse us.

How she ended up in advanced English with our eleventh-grade class remained a mystery known only to those higher on the phylogenetic scale than we. Maybe she had shown promise somewhere. Maybe they felt sorry for her. We didn’t care.

But there she sat each day, a rather plain young girl, stocky but not overweight, wearing dresses probably inherited from an older sister. Her round, featureless face stared ahead. She said little. We paid, as I have said, no attention to her one way or another.

Until that day.

That was the day Mrs. Morgan, our teacher, imposed the harsh penalty that required each of us to read something we had written.

Oh, it proved a sad affair. It featured much itchy drivel, pompous buffoonery, and self-conscious mutterings with no shred of promise.

Until it came to Betty.

She stood, took a deep breath, and spoke for the first time we remembered. And when she spoke, something magic emerged and circled our hearts. It was a poem. It rhymed and everything. Best I remember, it told of a young girl with no hope in life watching from a porch each day as people passed. Words flowed in a misty rhythm that settled upon us like the thought of a smile from long ago. She finished to silence, nodded, and sat. I thought I saw one of the rich girls in class dab an eye. A football star said, “Damn.” Mrs. Morgan sat speechless.

Perhaps she copied that poem from a dusty book in a home with no indoor plumbing. Perhaps an older sister helped her on a kitchen table, writing by a coal oil lantern. Maybe she found a quiet place somewhere and let her heart flow among the poverty and hopelessness, and just for a brief moment she was a princess.

I like to think it was the latter.