The Last Supper
My English teacher colleague, the fabulous Kelly Dennis, has told me to write at least 150 words on what my last supper would be if I were on death row.
Well, first of all, let's talk about why I'm there.
Clearly, there has been a horrible misunderstanding. We live in Wisconsin, and Wisconsin doesn't have capital punishment. That's such a funny phrase, "capital punishment." I read newspapers from the time I could read, and whenever I encountered that phrase I thought someone had flunked there state capitals test and was being punished. A nervous child, I thought the same fate awaited me. This is what led me in 1976 to write all 50 states on the soles of one shoe and their corresponding capitals on the other.
It took me hours to do this. I don't remember what color ink I used, but I know I was motivated by not failing a sixth grade social studies test on the capitals of all fifty states. I found it ironic, even at age 11, that was I being tested on this in the middle of the East China Sea on a tiny dot of an island called Okinawa. But I was not in charge of curriculum. I was a student.
So anyhoo, after having made a significant effort to cheat my way through this capital test, in an effort to avoid capital punishment, I walked to my social studies class on the outsides of my feet. When I arrived, my stomach fell into my guilty feet. Good grief, I forgot I sat near the front of the room.
How would I shift my feet that many times without getting caught?
So I started the test. I crossed my left foot, with the states, over my right thigh. Alabama.
But then a marvelous thing happened. My mind knew - it knew! - that it was Montgomery.
And so it went, state after state. I knew most of the capitals, except for those tiny eastern seaboard states that are all mushed together like some goolash that your mom makes right before military payday.
I had committed what I had thought was a capital offense, but didn't need to carry it out. Still, the proof was on my shoes. What if there was a shoe inspection before we left class. I'd never seen one. But this was a school for military brats. It could happen.
Turns out, though, I didn't get caught. And I learned something. I learned that hard-core cheating could actually be studying.
When I went home that night, to what I thought could have been my last supper, I don't remember what the meal my mother served was.
I can only hope it was not goolash. I hated her goolash. It was a reminder of life's constraints, a reminder that resources were not unlimited, and at the end of a pay period, you combined what you had like or it not.
Still, it was an effort of love, this goolash. An attempt to nourish despite scant ingrendients. For that, I can only thank my late mother and, despite my taste buds aversion to the contrary, for the monthly devotion she showered us in the form of macraoni, ground beef and plain Ragu.
If I could have one last supper with Mom, it would b over e a bowl of that awful, but loving, meal she assembled in haste so that we might carry on to better meals in the weeks to come.
My English teacher colleague, the fabulous Kelly Dennis, has told me to write at least 150 words on what my last supper would be if I were on death row.
Well, first of all, let's talk about why I'm there.
Clearly, there has been a horrible misunderstanding. We live in Wisconsin, and Wisconsin doesn't have capital punishment. That's such a funny phrase, "capital punishment." I read newspapers from the time I could read, and whenever I encountered that phrase I thought someone had flunked there state capitals test and was being punished. A nervous child, I thought the same fate awaited me. This is what led me in 1976 to write all 50 states on the soles of one shoe and their corresponding capitals on the other.
It took me hours to do this. I don't remember what color ink I used, but I know I was motivated by not failing a sixth grade social studies test on the capitals of all fifty states. I found it ironic, even at age 11, that was I being tested on this in the middle of the East China Sea on a tiny dot of an island called Okinawa. But I was not in charge of curriculum. I was a student.
So anyhoo, after having made a significant effort to cheat my way through this capital test, in an effort to avoid capital punishment, I walked to my social studies class on the outsides of my feet. When I arrived, my stomach fell into my guilty feet. Good grief, I forgot I sat near the front of the room.
How would I shift my feet that many times without getting caught?
So I started the test. I crossed my left foot, with the states, over my right thigh. Alabama.
But then a marvelous thing happened. My mind knew - it knew! - that it was Montgomery.
And so it went, state after state. I knew most of the capitals, except for those tiny eastern seaboard states that are all mushed together like some goolash that your mom makes right before military payday.
I had committed what I had thought was a capital offense, but didn't need to carry it out. Still, the proof was on my shoes. What if there was a shoe inspection before we left class. I'd never seen one. But this was a school for military brats. It could happen.
Turns out, though, I didn't get caught. And I learned something. I learned that hard-core cheating could actually be studying.
When I went home that night, to what I thought could have been my last supper, I don't remember what the meal my mother served was.
I can only hope it was not goolash. I hated her goolash. It was a reminder of life's constraints, a reminder that resources were not unlimited, and at the end of a pay period, you combined what you had like or it not.
Still, it was an effort of love, this goolash. An attempt to nourish despite scant ingrendients. For that, I can only thank my late mother and, despite my taste buds aversion to the contrary, for the monthly devotion she showered us in the form of macraoni, ground beef and plain Ragu.
If I could have one last supper with Mom, it would b over e a bowl of that awful, but loving, meal she assembled in haste so that we might carry on to better meals in the weeks to come.
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