The next few days groaned by. Now only three
more school days remained before Christmas vacation, that greatest time of all
year. As it drew closer, Miss Iona Pearl Bodkin, my homeroom teacher, became
more and more manic, whipping the class into a veritable frenzy of Yuletide
joy. We belted out carol after carol. We
built our own paper Christmas tree with cut-out ornaments. We strung together
long strings of popcorn chains. Crayon Santas and silver-paper wreaths poured
out of our assembly line.
Miss Bodkin, after recess, addressed us: “I
want all of you to write a theme…”
A theme! A rotten theme before Christmas!
There must be kids somewhere who love writing themes, but to a normal
air-breathing human kid, writing themes is a torture that ranks only with the
dreaded medieval chin-breaker of Inquisitional fame. A theme!
“…entitled, ‘What I want for Christmas,’ “
she concluded.
The clouds lifted. I saw a faint gleam of
light at the other end of the black cave of gloom which had enveloped me since
my visit to Santa. Rarely had the words poured from my penny pencil with such
feverish fluidity. Here was a theme on a subject that needed talking about if
ever one did. I remember to this day its
glorious wing phrases and concise imagery:
"What I want for Christmas is a red Ryder BB
gun with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time. I think
everybody should have a Red Ryder BB gun. They are very good for Christmas. I
don’t think a football is a very good Christmas present."
I wrote it on blue-lined paper from my Indian
Chief tablet, being very careful about the margins. Miss Bodkin was very snippy
about uneven margins. The themes were handed in and I felt somehow what when Miss
Bodkin read mine she would sympathize with my plight and make an appeal on my
behalf to the powers that be, and that everything would work out, somehow. She
was my last hope.
In God We Trust, All
Others Pay Cash,
Jean Shepherd, 1966.
Shepherd’s
book of course became the basis for the 1983 movie, A Christmas Story set in industrial northwest Indiana where Ralphie
struggles through boyhood and Shepherd himself serves as the movie’s off-screen
narrator.
1 comment:
No themes for my kids the week before Christmas. I have enough grading as it is to correct this year.
Most "holiday" songs are banned for overt or veiled references to the Christmas story (Bible). So the wind ensemble is left with a paltry few for their Holiday Concert. Somehow, "Jingle Bells" and "Deck the Halls" don't strike me as songs that would do an oboe or flute justice. I can hang snowmen in my windows, but not Santas and certainly not creches. And the Latin Honors society raffled off "holiday bushes" (cute little evergreen trees with ornaments on them) for any student or teacher who wanted to buy tickets. I'd be bummed about the ban on Christmas parties, but we have too many kids with food allergies these days, so there's a blanket "no food in the classrooms" policy. Welcome to 21st Century education, folks. Somehow Happy Holidays is sounding more & more like Bah Humbug than Merry Christmas.
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