People, remembering their childhood, usually come from families that most strongly deplore stealing and lying.

Thursday, January 31, 2002

People, remembering their childhood, usually come from families that most strongly deplore stealing and lying.

My family found nothing so upsetting as my terrible habit of telling the truth. I remember on one occasion that I disgraced the clan by telling a visitor that I thought her new hat was ugly. She had asked me if I liked it.

It was, as I found out, an extremely expensive hat. Her attitude toward the family for the rest of the evening can only be described as glacial, but compared to the family’s attitude toward me, it was downright buddy-buddy.

&uot;But don’t you want me to tell the truth?&uot; I protested tearfully to my father, who had been delegated to point out to me the error of my ways when she had gone.

&uot;Of course, I want you to tell the truth,&uot; he replied. &uot;But you have to learn how to tell the truth.&uot; At which point he gave me an example of satisfactory truth telling which I still cherish, but am not much good at.

&uot;A man says to a lady,&uot; dad told me, &uot;When I look into your eyes time stands still. Even though he means your face could stop a clock.&uot;

I never really learned the trick of it. In 1984, when I went back to Nebraska City for my 50th class reunion, we sat around after dinner giving surviving class members each a turn to stand up and tell something of his life from the time we graduated.

One of the men, a fellow graduate, was urged to tell &uot;the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.&uot;

&uot;I’ll tell the truth,&uot; he said, &uot;and nothing but the truth, but not the whole truth. Remember the blow-ups we always had when Love Cruikshank decided to tell the ‘whole truth’?&uot;

We all knew what he was remembering, as we remembered. We had in our junior year a geometry teacher, who couldn’t teach geometry; or, perhaps, we couldn’t learn geometry.

The poor woman gave tests and we flunked them. On the morning that she handed out delinquent slips to a third of the class, she sat at her desk and regarded us with great sorrow.

&uot;Will you please tell me,&uot; she implored in tragic tones, &uot;Why you all do so poorly in this class? Please, please.&uot;

She seemed on the verge of tears. As she started out, her wide blue eyes pleading with us from behind her gold-rimmed glasses, my heart broke for her.

&uot;Anyone?&uot; she begged. &uot;Will no one give me an answer?&uot;

It was too much for me. I stood up shakily and with as much compassion as a teenager can muster did my best.

&uot;I think we’d do better,&uot; I said, &uot;If the class were a little more interesting. It’s got to be the most boring class I’ve ever been in.&uot;

I meant well, but it was a big mistake. I didn’t know that teacher had so many words in her. We were all a bit shattered. Happily no one in the class blamed me. Indeed, since in the process of her monologue, the teacher announced that she would telephone my mother that very night to report my unacceptable behavior, I was surrounded by sympathetic well-wishers.

I needed them. In the kindness of my heart I had tried to answer an urgent question and was absolutely baffled by the way the object of my compassion had turned on me. Far from being on my defensive about the incident, I was indignant and complained bitterly to my mother.

&uot;I’ll talk to her when she calls,&uot; my mother said, &uot;and then I’ll call you to the phone and you can apologize.&uot;

It didn’t work out that way, though. I don’t know exactly what was said but it developed that the teacher didn’t want an apology. She wanted me dead.

I should have remembered, of course, to say &uot;When we walk into this class, time stands still.&uot;

Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column appears Thursdays.