Tales Out of School - DRUM LINES!

7 February, 2014

Houston

Sitting in a classroom, still and quiet, saying nothing except when called on – this was not exactly my cup of tea back then. It is even less so for me in later life. I was always hyper, and it took an enormous amount of self-control to get through school. I will mention here that self-control was not a talent that I have ever developed to be used on a regular basis.

That said, back then I was a kid – an adult under construction. In this respect, I was just like all the others around me. Certain school conditions made me nervous, and the whole thing was stressful most of the time. So I would, from time-to-time emote using whatever means was convenient and/or permissible at the time. This included drumming on my desk.

In fact, I often saw myself as part of some immense drum line, marching through town in a parade, or as a drummer in a carnival band in Rio. I have always loved percussion instruments, and enjoy playing them. Much to my chagrin, as well as to that of the kids sitting near near me, I would every once in awhile tap a few times on the desk, on the eraser end so as to minimize the noise. Usually this was begun subconsciously, as my inner child marched to the beat of a different drummer that only I heard.

This "different drummer" played a lively cadence that day as I was deeply focused on some lesson or test. So when the sound of my formal name uttered forcefully shattered this concentration, I looked up to see an angry teacher staring me right in the face. She then uttered the four words most feared by every grade school student: “Go to the office!”

The end result of the pilgrimage to the Seat of Power was that I had to stay after school and do punishwork.

I showed up at the eight grade classroom right outside the office to serve out my sentence, and took an available desk. I sat down and began writing. I was making pretty good progress, too, when I heard someone call my name: “Hey, HALL!” came a whisper. I looked to my left, and there at the desk next to me, sat this guy named T, for whom staying after school had become a way of life. “What did ya get?” he asked.

I was bewildered at the question. I didn't get anything – not even his question.

Now, this me'er-do-well boy hitting me with the 3rd degree was a regular fixture in the after-school sitting contest. We did not call it “detention” back then – that sounded too much like the House of Detention. We just called it “stayin' in after school.” But instead of D-Hall, this should be called T- Hall in honor of the many, many days this habitual offender did hours of hard labor so that – one day – he might just come to see the many errors of his ways.

“Whacha doin' here? Whadja DO?” he continued.

“I was drumming on my desk in class,” I explained. Misery loves company, and I confessed to him the terrible crimes of which I had been found guilty, and thus banished to stay after school to make amends to the powers-that-be by writing lines. I had a sympathetic audience at last! Yes, at long last here was somebody else who knows the woes of getting caught misbehaving; I explained that I had to write one hundred times: “I must not drum in class...click-click, I must not drum in class...” whereupon I begun to repeat the lines in cadence, temptation overtaking me - guiding my hands in steady rhythm - drumming along as I said it, clicking my pencils together at the end of each line as I had seen done in real bands.

Now, I mentioned that I had an audience there that afternoon. That I did – for not only were the eyes and ears of T upon me, but also those of a few other youthful wayward inmates nearby – and all too quickly they were joined by the eyes and ears of a teacher!

Renowned Chef Emeril Lagasse made the saying: “Kick it up a notch!” famous. That afternoon, my punishwork was kicked up a few notches as the 100 lines was inflated to 500 lines. This took the rest of the study hall, as well as the better part of my nice, free weekend playtime.

Drumming would no longer be a part of the in-class entertainment – not any time soon: my hand hurt from all that writing.

It was Thoreau who said: "If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away." I realize now that I did march to the beat of a different drummer, and that the drummer was ME!