Humor

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The day Tater got his

Miss Minnie Lea Pearson (name changed to protect the innocent) was an old spinster School teacher who had never smiled or laughed a day in her life. That is as far as the students at Caesar Grammar School knew. She was the typical school "marm" of that day and age. She had completely given her life to teaching youngsters the three R's, with much success I must say. A good adjective to describe her appearance is that she was "plain". Miss Minnie Lea didn't know what lipstick was, but was very familiar with talcum powder, dowsing it on her face until she looked like she had spent the night with a Vampire. She wore her hair up in a tight bun, wore dresses that she had obviously made from flower feed sacks of that day, and lace up shoes similar to what the farmers called "brogans". She taught the 5th, 6th, and 7th grade. These three grades were of a necessity all in one room due to the limited space at the School House at Caesar.

Miss Minnie Lea had several rules she insisted you follow if you were to stay in her class. One was that you never ever chew gum! Another was that you never, never, laugh or talk while class was going on. There were no exceptions. Corporal punishment came quickly and surely if you broke one of these rules. With three classes in the same room you can understand her point of view about talking or laughing. If you were a boy and was caught talking, laughing, or chewing gum, she would grab you by your hair and physically drag you to the Principal's Office. The girls got the palm of their hand sharply slapped with a ruler. This didn't seem fair to me.

At this time let me introduce to you a boyhood friend of mine who lived in the Caesar community called Tater Bug. Tater had one main goal in life and that was to make me laugh in Miss Minnie Lea's classroom. He was quite successful, I might add. Before I was 12 years old I was half-bald from being dragged by my hair to the Principals office. Tater had one redeeming trait, that is if you want to call that a trait--He would let me know in advance that he was going to make me laugh in class and that I should wear thicker than usual pants.
This particular incident started unfolding one Sunday after morning Church service. Tater came up to me and said that before little recess on Monday I would be in the Principals office and that I should wear real thick pants. Words passed between us and I made up my mind that I would not get caught by one of his traps again. My butt still stung from the last incident.

On Monday morning I thought I was prepared for what was about to happen. Tater came into the schoolroom with a scarf wrapped around his hair and his face. The weather was extremely cold and I didn't think anything about it. As soon as Miss Minnie Lea turned to the black board to write the assignments for the three classes, Tater removed the scarf from his hair and face. I was not prepared for what was about to happen. He had gunked his hair with a hair dressing called dippidi doo (a substance similar in consistency to axle grease with a slight rose aroma) and had slicked it down like Rudolph Valentino. I held the laughter. He saw this was not going to work so his next ploy was to pull his hair straight over his nose and mimic a Platypus. I held my own. Next he quickly combed his hair straight back as if he were running at breakneck speed and the wind was causing his hair to stick straight back. I bit my tongue. Next he combed his hair forward as if he were falling backwards at supersonic speed. I closed my eyes, bit my tongue, and pinched myself. Taking this as an encouragement he pulled the Coup de Gras. He piled his hair up in a cone, stuck two pencils up his nose, and reached in his pocket, pulled out some tree moss, and stuck some in each ear. It was more than I could bear. Hearing the racket, Miss Minnie Lea turned around, and before Tater could blink an eye, Miss Minnie Lea said, "don't remove a thing, young man". Tater froze as if hit by a blast of sub-arctic air. He knew he was in trouble and he didn't have on thick pants. Miss Minnie Lea stormed back to where Tater was setting, grabbed him by the cone of hair, and started toward the Principals office with him--only Tater didn't move. Miss Minnie Lea had a surprised look on her face, although determined. She saw what was the matter, came back and tried again. Again her hand slipped off. The next time she grabbed a hand full of hair, but to no avail. Getting frustrated by this time, she grabbed Tater by the nap of the neck and the seat of the pants, and made him do the Ostrich walk to the principals office, pencils in nose and moss in ears included.

By this time the whole room was in bedlam. Even with the noise from students laughing and slapping their desk, I could hear Tater getting his. After several minutes, we all noticed that Miss Minnie Lea had not returned to the classroom. Being concerned that she may have passed out in the hall from all the excitement we went to investigate. She was nowhere to be found. The students looked in every room and closet in the building but to no avail. Finally someone suggested that maybe in the excitement of everything that was going on, Miss Minnie Lea had had an accident of nature, so to speak, and was down at the girl's outhouse. Several of the braver girls were dispatched to the outhouse to see if she was down there. Some even suggested that maybe she had gone berserk and ran out into the woods. Finally, word came back from the girls who had gone to the outhouse that she was down there and was O.K. We later found out that she was setting there with her head resting in the palms of her hands with tears rolling down her "talcum powder" face making little roads in her cheeks from laughing so hard. From then on we had a different opinion of her and she was just one of the gang.

After Tater and I graduated from Caesar Grammar School and moved on to better things we lost touch with Miss Minnie Lea. Someone later told us that she had finally married a bachelor from the community and had moved up north to a tiny town in Mississippi called Hot Coffee.

I haven't heard from Tater in nearly 40 years. I don=t know what ever happened to him but if I were a betting man I would bet that he hasn't been able to set down since the Dippidy-doo incident.

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