Aunt Ingeborg was a teacher. Was? Perhaps I should say that she still is a teacher. Teachers never really retire. Once a teacher, always a teacher. It’s the same with a farmer, a Marine or any number of other occupations. You can stop farming or teaching, but that doesn’t mean that you have stopped being a farmer or a teacher.

Aunt Ingeborg told me an interesting story the other day. Some years ago, one of her elementary school pupils had a small ball in his possession while he was in class. Ingeborg decided that the ball would interfere with his proper education, so she confiscated the offending orb. That is what teachers do. I know. One of my teachers took a prized potato gun from me. I wasn’t an outlaw. I was using the pistol for protection only and the loss of my firearm was never compensated. I think it is the right of every American citizen to own a potato gun.

I am getting off the subject here. Ingeborg took the ball from one of her students. It was a superball. A superball was a ball with more bounce to the ounce than your average ball. Perhaps that is why it was called a superball? Ingeborg had never seen a superball before, nor was she aware of the existence of such a ball. She thought she would bounce the ball at the front of her class, to show that she would not put up with such transgressions of her classroom policies, while at the same time showing her playful side to her young charges. She bounced the ball while bending over slightly in order to catch the ball on its return flight upward. The ball bounced like a superball should. It zoomed skyward at a rate much faster than Ingeborg had expected. Not prepared for such speed and not a natural shortstop, Ingeborg was not ready to catch it with her hand. Instead, she caught it with her lip. Ingeborg brought a fat lip to the classroom for a few days as a painful reminder that a superball can be a real surprise. I will bet that her students loved her no less and probably appreciated the fact that a teacher could make a mistake, too.

I have no doubt that Ingeborg took her shot to the mouth with both humor and humility. Such grace under pressure was a lesson that I would expect to be carried by her students to this day. It takes a real teacher to be able to teach with a confiscated superball and a fat lip. An ardent volunteer for many good causes, she continues to teach us all with her example of a life of cheerful giving. Aunt Ingeborg was a teacher. No, Aunt Ingeborg is a teacher and a fine one.

My wife brought me a surprise the other day. She was going through some old files and made an interesting discovery. It was a collection of those little stickers that you put on Christmas packages. The stickers had drawings of Santa Clauses in various forms on one side and a place to write whom the gift is from and whom it is given to on the reverse. I took the things from my wife and thought she was suggesting that I use them on actual gift packages next year instead of putting my presents into zippered bags. I love giving, but am not quite so enamored with gift-wrapping. Then my wife showed me the side of the tags on the back of the Santa Clauses. Each and every tag was signed by the giver, &uot;Lucille.&uot; Lucille was my mother’s name. What a surprise it was for me to see them. My mother died shortly before Christmas in 1990. It was so like her to have prepared these tags well ahead of time.

She would have been ready if any gifts had crossed her path during the year. My mother loved Christmas. My mother always enjoyed giving. I never heard her once, even while struggling to pay bills, wish that she had more. I did hear her often say that she wished she had more to give. She often told me to take what I have and call it good. She was much better at doing that than I am.

The little tags were a very pleasant surprise. The forgotten signed tags will be a gift that she never knew she gave me. I will keep the Christmas gift tags as a reminder to give. Yes, Lucille was my mother’s name. Lucille is my mother’s name. Loved ones may be gone, but we can still see their shadows.

Hartland resident Al Batt writes columns for the Wednesday and Sunday editions of the Tribune.