Mrs. B

I met Mrs. B. in the neighborhood, at my Father's automotive garage. She was a person with authority, which I was later to find out about, both in and out of class. It took me a few years to catch up with her at the local high school, both in physiology class and around the school grounds and buildings. She was highly respected, tough but fair and intensly human. The most unusual thing she did was to invite athletes to offer her the opportunity to wear their letterman's sweater on Thursdays, the usual (but not for teachers, of course) practice between boys and girls. And, she taught an elective course for senior boys called "Boys Foods," which ultimately I was priviledged to take part in. Also, boys would offer to wash her black, classic car, a Lincoln as I recall; & I did that one time.

The most ibiding memory was the day in class when she lectured on germs, and then had us look through a microscope at flies and maggots. It was the big eye opener of the decade in a sense, a memory now that comes back to haunt me, expecially when I am at an outside (farm) dinner and there are flies crawling all over the food. She did things like dissolve metal in Coca Cola as well, with the accompanying talk about the hazards of soft drinks, sugar. She was no evangelist, no prude, but there were some health issues which she delivered on with no mercy. I can see her as clear as day walking down the hall with an enormous letterman's sweater on, way big, her hands doing their best to push out of the cuffs. I hope that students now and in the future will have at least one Mrs. B in their lives.