I like to share my ventures with clients in the Head Start age range. It is a target-rich environment and we share similar intellectual and emotional pursuits…more similar all the time, it seems. Yet now I’ve matriculated to the world of first through fifth grade students who seem to have an inconsistent grasp on life if not reality. As you probably know these clients tend to gravitate to peers of their own ages, classes and interests when sitting on the bus and I try to honor that when assigning seats early in the year. On the other hand I like to mess with that arrangement on my grade school route as circumstance and social engineering experimentation is called for. Take for instance a small gaggle of 4th and 5th grade girls seated in the back of my bus. When the decibel level gets too high I will, at my earliest convenience call for one of the girls to come to the front of the bus to sit beside a much younger client. Inevitably by the time we arrive at school a rapport has been built between those fortunate enough to have received this dispensation, which in turn fortifies my own confidence in such ventures. Oh, did I say almost inevitably? I meant to say almost, OK? Last week I called for Janice to move to a seat beside Chance, a red-headed spark plug of seven years. After the inevitable, “I wasn’t the one making the most noise, Mr. Ely,” Janice takes a seat with Chance. Two minutes later I get a, “Mr. Ely, you better move me back to my seat before I slap the freckles off this boy.” Well my flabber suffered a major gast, for I could readily tell something was awry. But, the immediate constraints of my driving left me only to take a deep breath and launch into a soliloquy of justifications why Janice had better back off. I’m sure I blended a reference or two from the Old Testament for effect, like smite or smote with a couple of contemporary admonitions such as the cooling of one’s jets and the employment of a chill pill, among other age-appropriate remedies. I peered into the mega-mirror and noticed my complexion bore a bluish cast so I decided it was time to wrap the sermon, three points or not, before I devolved into full vapor lock. On such occasions I usually closed with an attempt at humor in order to normalize relations with all involved. So, briefly I suggested to Janice that the challenge she set for herself appeared to be formidable in light of the mottled countenance with which nature had so abundantly adorned Chance…or something to that effect. Without so much as a blink, she glances at Chance, then seeks me out through the mega-mirror and my super spy sunglasses and sends a short but definite chill up my spine with, “I didn’t say it would be easy.”
Posted on: Sun, 01 Jun 2014 15:15:42 +0000
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