This story was originally published on Monday, September 12, 2005.
As much reading as I do in a day, very little of it is what you would consider fine literature. USA Today, Rolling Stone, Boing Boing and all of it’s associated links are what I read when I’m bored, and since my dorm room consists of a computer and a record player I’m bored almost all day. Most of the novels and short stories I was forced to read in school I actually enjoyed (Great Expectations, Adventures of Huckleberry Fin), but it would take a lot of convincing for me to voluntarily read another book. I think I’m just weary of committing a large amount of time to something that I might end up hating (Heart of Darkness, Wuthering Heights).
I had a high school English teacher who got me really excited about the transcendentalists though. Her name was Mrs. Lawrence. Most of the students at my school weren’t so fond of her because of a ‘monumental’ book analysis assignment she gave called the Anthology. It really wasn’t an unreasonable task; high school kids are just lazy. The students who were pissed about the assignment would B about how much they hated Mrs. Lawrence and give their Anthologies titles like The Reason I Wasted My Entire Spring Break Instead of Going to the Beach with my Friends, or I think Mrs. Lawrence is a Stupid B. It was obvious that it hurt her feelings. One day Mrs. Lawrence just snapped and screamed/cried at this sassy black chick who asked to go the bathroom.
“Can I go to the bathroom?” asked the sassy black chick.
“j j jj jj Just GO! JUST GET UP AND GO AND DON’T COME BACK! Get out of my classsss bwuuu hu hu wah wah….”, blurted Mrs. Lawrence before running out of the room, hands covering her red face.
The sassy black chick responded with one of those sassy side to side neck motions and a sassy “MmmmmmHhhhhh” sound.
Certainly there was something else traumatic happening in my teacher’s life to spark such a dramatic outburst. I’m sure the hate coming from a lot of the students didn’t help her mental health either. I believe though that one of the greatest contributors to Mrs. Lawrence’s stress level was the idealism of the Transcendentalists.
One day Mrs. Lawrence decided that the students should use the class time to live deliberately in the spirit of Thoreau, Emerson, and their associates. For those of you who need a refresher, living deliberately is an approach to life where one makes conscious choices about every thing they do to fully experience the world around them. For instance, a person living deliberately would take an unusual route home every day so they could experience different places and situations. Our teacher’s first suggestions were dumb little things like “Sit on TOP of your desk instead of in it!”, or “ Make a crazy bird noise for no reason!”.
She decided to step it up a notch; a huge mistake. “Let’s all go outside and continue living deliberately. Just do whatever you feel like doing!”.
As we walked towards the door Mrs. Lawrence stopped us and suggested that we exit through the window because it would be a new experience. There was a look in every student’s eye at that moment that expressed a shared understanding that all hell was about to break loose. We leaped through the window to freedom and proceeded to live much more deliberately than our teacher had expected. Students ran amok, pushing each other, breaking school property, jumping out of trees. Some students left the school grounds, others sat in seclusion, pulling up grass.
Christopher of Three Happenin Guys immediately formed a tribe of the most hyperactive ritalin kids in the class, of which he was the leader. They simply ran in a giant pack the whole time, hurdling over any obstacles they saw, no matter how dangerously high they were. They jumped off steps, over trashcans and handrails, and ended their tour at a particular picnic table.
While they were running and jumping I decided I would live deliberately at the top of the flag pole. I scurried up about twenty feet and clutched the copper dome at the top. From up high I could see all the transcendental insanity around me. Rick Riley had scaled the amphitheater and he waved to me from its roof. Below I saw our principle Mr. Ross question Mrs. Lawrence as to what the hell was going on. She quickly called off the party.
As I slid down the flagpole I saw the two educators gather around Chris in a concerned manner. During his last picnic table leap, Christopher landed on his hand and dislocated his middle finger. As he describes it best, the finger looked like a snake with a rat still in its throat. Mr. Ross, Christopher, and poor Mrs. Lawrence spent the rest of the day in the hospital.
Ever since that day transcendentalism has really stuck with me. I don’t go around quoting Song of Myself or anything like that; in fact I don’t really like anything those guys wrote. But they must have led some fun lives.
Previously: The Hero
