Patriotic Songs (Requiem For The Backstabber)

It was the Fall of 1967 when I entered Hamann and started Kindergarten. The woman who taught us kids there was Mrs. Heisch. If you really want to get a sense of what it was like to have been there, all I have to tell is that I remember singing "My country tis of thee/sweet land of liberty/of thee I sing". My hearing impairment prevented me from figuring out the rest of the words. To this day, I still do not know the words beyond what I've just quoted for you. I used to just muble and fake it the rest of the way. I was able to figure out the Pledge of Allegiance because I had kids next to me who were reciting it loud enough that I could eventually get the whole thing down in my head so that I wouldn't have to fake it anymore.
My hearing impairment is based mostly in my right ear. I was born with about half gone in my right and about a quarter gone in my left ear as a result of Mom's rubella. I also have tinnitus. The ringing in my bad right ear has gone on since the day I was born and has never stopped. I have never known a world without it. I will have shifts in the sound during the course of a day, but it never stops.
When I was at Hamann and I was in class, I would always position myself to the right side of calss as you were facing the chalkboard and Mrs. Heisch. As far as I was concerned, Mrs. Heisch and the chalkboard were one and the same because they both shared the same personality. They had none.
I never really feared Mrs. Heisch, but she was an incredibly distant person who did not make much contact with me during the course of the year. I had no idea of what she was up to.
A few of us kids who would eventually go on to St. Clare's were there. We didn't really connect then. But there were two fellow students there who stood out to me and left deep impressions on me at that early age. There was the first girl I ever had a crush on. She was a little blonde named Cindy. And then there was a kid who struck a lot of fear in me because he was just plain crazy. I don't remember his name. He had the distinction of having successfully run at full speed and put his head through one of our classroom windows. I recall him attempting this at least two other times without success. I think that on one of the attempts, he hit the glass and only put a crack in it. I studiously avoided this kid.
Mrs. Heisch was supposed to be a teacher and a nurturer. Instead, she turned out to be a backstabber that I sang patriotic songs for and made sure that I slept on my mat during naptime as part of being a good boy. I had no idea that she was observing that I didn't interact much with other kids and was plotting to have me removed from the Santa Clara School system. Instead, she got it in her head that I was retarded and that I needed to be transferred to a school for them. She began arranging for me to be tested by people. I was taken out of class at least two times that I can recall and given tests and interviewed by two adults to determine if I was retarded or not. I told my Mom about this and she went through the roof. She found out from Heisch that she was attempting to get the proof she needed to get me pulled out. My family doctor and a cousin of mine who taught at Hamann Elementary got involved to tell her that it was not the case at all. I don't know if my hearing had been brought up. If it was, I don't think it convinced her. I think what happened was that enough of the schoolyear passed by that it wasn't feasible on her part to continue the fight anymore.
Obviously, I hate her for what she did. But there is something else that I hate her more for that I've rarely spoken about before. She knew that I occasionally spoke to Cindy from time to time in very brief spurts. I recall very clearly to this day a conversation I had with Cindy where we were talking about marshmallows (sp?). Because of my hearing, I kept saying marshmellows or matmellows and Cindy spent a few minutes getting me to hear it correctly as marshmallows to no avail. I didn't have enough high-end frequencies in my ears to hear the "a" part of marshmallows as well as her soft voice making it doubly tough to figure out what she was trying to impart to me. To this day, I am convinced that Mrs. Heisch knew I had a crush on her and she egged Cindy on to have a conversation with me or that she got Cindy to reveal the contents of that very conversation with her to give her the ammunition she needed to prove I was retarded. She used the vulnerability of my crush towards Cindy as a weapon against me. That is what I hate her for the most. She spent most of the year trying to get me kicked out of the school and yet she didn't get the nut-cased windowsmasher kicked out. I wonder if that kid is even still alive?
Other wise, I spent most of the year winging through everything and just picking up on what she would write on the board or if I was close enough to her to hear her voice when she taught.
My last day at Hamann was the worst for me because it was the last day I ever saw Cindy. Her mother came to pick her up and I watched the both of them from a distance in the schoolyard as they conversed. I was sitting inside a big city sewer pipe that the city left on the schoolground for us kids to play in. I was in that pipe all alone when I saw Cindy's Mom take her hand and then they both walked out of the yard. It was the first time that my heart really sank over a girl and it hurt.
I think that Doug M. and I (Doug would go on to St. Clare's though he would not stay there) went walking to school one time together from his house and we took took some shortcuts to get there. The reason why I remember this is because one of the shortcuts involved going through somebody's backyard. The man of the house spotted us going through his yard and he got pissed off at us and yelled at us for doing so. I felt really uncomfortable afterwards.
I learned some things at Hamann, but it was through my own powers of observation that anything sunk in. I don't recall much as far as lessons were concerned. Hamann was a place where I hung out by myself again and acted as an observer. Things would change a bit when I went to St. Clare's.
I'm sure Mrs. Heisch is now long dead. She wasn't a spring chicken when she taught us. I wish she could have learned that I made it through college so that I could have smirked back at her.