The Lovely Chocolate Mob - By Richard J. Bennett Page 0,6
to tease me a bit.
“Well, since shooting girls was against the code of the west, they usually boarded a stagecoach at the end of the show and rode off into the sunset, or back east where all the bad people came from.”
“Did you have a favorite Western?” she quizzed, probably trying to find out what type of hero I favored.
“Yes, I had several, but the one I liked best was “The Rifleman.”
“Why was that, Mr. Owen?” she said, not looking up from her scribbling.
“Because the Rifleman was a show about a father and a son who moved to a small town to start a ranch; it was them against the world. Every now and then the father would have to ride into town to help the sheriff shoot bad guys with his rifle, but that was about 10 minutes into the show, so you got to see plenty of family interaction. Lucas was the good father and Mark was the good son. And the music, oh, the music! Are you familiar with the music, Miss Planter?”
“No, I’m afraid I’m not.” She paused and looked up, re-grouping for her next set of questions. I thought she was reading from a list on the clipboard. “Did you get along well with your siblings?” she asked, getting back to the family. I had to think about that for a short while, this being a never-considered-before issue. “Yes, we got along. We were different. We didn’t all develop the same in the same areas, but overall we cared about each other. We had our fights and disagreements, but hopefully by now we’ve grown out of that.” I chuckled when I said that. Miss Planter did not.
“How did you perform in school?” she asked.
“I was interested in learning as long as a subject held my attention, but later when I figured out that the teacher or teachers had ‘favorites,’ I kind of lost interest. I did okay in some early school classes, and not okay in others. It depended on how well the teacher and I got along; if I liked her, I did great; if I didn’t, I didn’t. I shouldn’t have let any teachers’ feelings toward me interfere with my learning, but I was a child.”
“Did you have a favorite teacher, Mr. Owen?” she asked, looking up to see my reaction.
“Yes, I did. My third-grade teacher was a young lady named Miss Plummer, and she never spanked me. That’s how I knew she liked me. I once made straight A’s in her class, which for me was almost miraculous. She was looking right at me when I opened that report card, and I could see her smiling when I discovered my fortune for that six weeks. She was so nice to me.”
“Did things stay good for you in early education?” Miss Planter continued.
“No, the next year I got stuck with some lady who didn’t want to be teaching but had to in order to get her husband through medical school; I made my first ‘D’ that year.”
“Do you blame her for that ‘D’?” she asked.
“I blame her for not liking me; I don’t think she went out of her way to help me learn anything, plus, if you were a teacher and you didn’t like a kid, would you grade him higher?” Miss Planter looked stumped for a moment, then said, “I’m not so sure I’d like being a teacher, either, if I didn’t have to be.”
I replied, “Well, you don’t have to! But she thought she did, and felt trapped. I think she took some of it out on us kids. I had to take that ‘D’ home to show my parents.”
“Are your parents still living?” she asked. This question stung, but I tried not to show it.
“No,” I replied. Dad died about 20 years ago, Mom departed about 15 years later. I’m the only one left at home.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Your parents sounded like good people; I’d like to have met them,” she said.
“Thanks. Yes, they were good people. They were good parents.”
Miss Planter took time writing her answers down, then asked, “Do you have any special memories about growing up? Anything that stands out of the ordinary?”
I didn’t have to think about this. “Yes, what I remember and cherish best are the vacations we took. Actually, we didn’t take a regular vacation or holiday; the meaning of a vacation is to get away, but on ours, we had a purpose, which was to visit our relatives, our grandparents