The Turning of Mrs. Shay

What year did Hogan’s Heroes first air? The reason I ask is because it’s around that time that our dear Oxford School librarian, Mrs. Shay, began to turn against me.

Look. We all know that books are wonderful. As some thoughtful person once said, “a book is like a story in words crammed between two colorful pieces of cardboard!” But for pre-teen boys in the 1960s, two other things were even more wonderful; real life and TV. “Real life” consisted of everything I did outside of home and classroom – bikes, firecrackers, the Rouge, Motorcycle Hill, baseball in the field, football in the street, games of “dogpile,” or “tackle the guy with the ball” played across acres of neighbors’ yards. We’d stay out every night until the streetlights came on, sometimes a little later. “Real life” was what happened when one of your buddies started telling you about sex beyond the earshot of grownups.

Then there was TV. The mid-60s gave us The Outer Limits, The Addams Family, The Man From Uncle, Time Tunnel, Get Smart, Combat, McHale’s Navy, and maybe a dozen other shows that captured the imaginations of millions of young boys, including the aforementioned Hogan’s Heroes.

That was our world. Why would any of us want to read books?

Oh, sure, I read stuff; comic books, Mad Magazine, Saturday Evening Post, The Detroit News, and from time to time “normal” books about stuff that really fascinated me. Books like Frank Edwards’ Stranger than Science or Mac Davis’ Sports Shorts: Astonishing, Strange, but True. But for anyone to plop some “classic” book down in front of me was like a Baby Ruth in the swimming pool—a good thing, but in the wrong place at the wrong time guaranteed to repel me.

Prior to fifth grade (the year our teacher told us where we could all go), the relationship between Mrs. Shay and me was as sweet as puppies and cookies. I impressed her with my reading ability, and she impressed me with her willingness to leave me alone to work independently in the library. But from the fall of 1964 until I left Oxford in June of 1966, a combination of events and interactions began to transform our mutual perceptions.

First, there was “advanced reading” class. A handful of presumably gifted students from each of the three fifth grade (and, later, sixth grade) classes were selected to take our reading instruction in the library with Mrs. Shay. At first this seemed wonderful, because I expected that as she had done in the past, Mrs. Shay would allow us to read books of our choice. Instead, she assigned us all to read – was it Call of the Wild? –a very good book, but at the time one that I had absolutely no interest in reading. This was followed up by two other Baby-Ruth-in-the-pool books, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and Captains Courageous. I understand that kids sometimes need to be “forced” to read particular books. But Mrs. Shay’s approach to this was not to persuade or encourage, but to launch accusations of indolence against all those failing to show enthusiastic obedience. “Stop watching the ‘idiot box’ and pick up your book!” she would nag. I stubbornly resisted reading any of the books she assigned, which, of course, lowered my grade, increased her disdain, and eventually prompted her to threaten my exile from the class.

Second, there was a sixth grade creative writing contest, which for some time Mrs. Shay had badgered me to enter. Like a lot of boys, I had no interest in writing a story of any kind. I was a smart kid. I knew a lot of stuff. I was a talkative expert in astronomy, current events, geography, and maybe a few other things. From this Mrs. Shay apparently inferred that I could write stories. A week before the deadline, I began poorly crafting a story based on the Hogan’s Heroes TV show. For those of you who don’t know, Hogan’s Heroes was a show about American WWII prisoners of war in a German POW camp who ran a sophisticated espionage operation right under the noses of their Nazi guards. My awful knock off was replete with ridiculous references to Nazis, Chinese camp guards, and hand crank telephones in every prison barracks. It was truly terrible, messily written, and downright embarrassing—Mrs. Shay told me this in no uncertain terms. “You should only write about things you know about!” she bleated. Well of course! But since I wasn’t inspired to write about astronomy, current events, or geography, I wrote something inspired by my favorite TV show.

Finally, there was the awful charge of plagiarism she leveled against me. Specifically, around the late winter of 1966 she accused me of copying an assignment from another student. She did so, not by taking me aside and asking me if I had done so, but by spewing angry red ink accusations all over the paper itself. It needs to be said, of course, that my work was entirely my own. She had asked us to give examples of clichés and slang in speech and writing. I knew a bunch. We did part of the assignment in class and I would say some of them out loud to my table mates before I wrote them down. One of them, a sweet little girl above reproach, apparently borrowed some of my answers. Hence Mrs. Shay’s angry red ink accusation.

After that I seldom spoke to Mrs. Shay again. I saw her years later while I was working as a substitute teacher at Bryant Junior High School. She came over to my room to complain about my noisy class. I introduced myself and tried to spark kind memories of me within her and let bygones be bygones (ha! Now there’s a cliché!). She gave me a cold stare and returned to her room across the hall.

School librarians: ask them about a book, and they’ll tell you how books are made. Then they’ll accuse you of plagiarism.

No, that’s not fair. A couple years later I would meet Mrs. Haniford, the Adams Junior High School librarian, who always let us read whatever we wanted—even Detroit’s seditious, profanity-laced underground newspaper, the Fifth Estate. I bet she could have gotten me to read Call of the Wild!

Coming soon: Devil’s Night (oh sure), Mr. Kodyk, and goodbye to Oxford.