Teachers I Have Known

I'm inaugurating a new series of memoirs dedicated to my "teachers". And I start this set of reflections with a most unlikely candidate in some ways. She was only my teacher for one quarter of my 7th grade year. She taught Home Economics in a rotation that included typing, shop, and ecology! Go figure, right? It was the seventies.

Blanche Stanton was a teacher cut from a mold like most of her contemporaries that now belongs in the Smithsonian Museum of American History. While I went to school in southeastern Michigan, she hailed from southeastern Kentucky. I remember that she was a formidable presence who was often beset upon by the mocking of us kids, yet never took it in stride. She was at war with us, and by God she had no intention of declaring surrender.

In 12 years of public under-graduate education, I was "sent to the office" on one occasion, by one teacher: Mrs. Stanton. My crime? I rolled my eyes at her. No shit!

The infraction occurred on the heels of a diatribe that she performed upon returning from a sick day to discover that someone had placed her electric, plastic bottomed coffee percolator on an electric burner on one of the stoves in her classroom resulting in an absurdist sculpture of sorts, but ending the career of her coffee pot.

All these years later, I wonder if one of the mitigating factors in her outrage was a caffeine deficiency created by the demise of her beloved percolator...

My banishment to the office was a total and utter shock to me. MY GOD, sent to the office...insubordination...was next? Courts Marshall? Execution? I knew that if my dad ever discovered that I had been thusly accused, death would be a blessing.

Sheepishly, I entered the office and took a seat. I didn't say a thing to anybody. I held onto the pass like a spy with the code that could end the war while still in enemy territory. Suddenly the vice-prinicple entered the office and seeing me asked, "What are you doing here?"

I handed him the note from Mrs. Stanton. He read it, and then asked, "What did you do?"

"I rolled my eyes."

"You what?"

What did he mean, 'I what?' I repeated myself, "I rolled my eyes."

He rolled his.

He looked at the clock. He looked at me. He said, "Stay here another 10 minutes and then go back to class."

Like a blast of snow in the face of man on the edge of heat exhaustion, a wave of relief passed over me.

Now, lest you think this is the story of a bad teacher, quite to the contrary, Mrs. Stanton gave me one of the most valuable things I have ever received. She gave me my first introduction to cooking. And I LOVE to cook.

The recipe that got the ball rolling was for an Apple Crumb Coffee Cake. After making it with my lab mates in her kitchen, I proceeded to make and remake it again and again for anyone who would tolerate it, and for any occasion at which it would make any sense at all.

Mrs. Stanton was the best kind of teacher. She was real. She wasn't afraid to be eccentric, odd, or old school. She loved her subject, and when anything got between it and conveying its importance to her students, she wasn't above displaying her passion indiscriminately.

So besides the amazing recipe, she also taught me that teachers are not perfect. They need to be forgiven every now and then--just like their students.

POST WRITING THIS, I DISCOVERED HER OBITUARY:

Blanche Kelley Stanton

STANTON Blanche Kelley Stanton, age 85, passed away on, July 20, 2011, at her home in Peachtree City, Georgia. Blanche was the beloved daughter of Carrie Waters Kelley and Charlie Hoke Kelley. She was born in Pickens County, South Carolina on September 18, 1925. Blanche was an excellent student and served as a member of the National Beta Club in High School. After her high school graduation, she attended Michigan State University where she studied Geography and Home Economics. While serving as Executive Director of the Dairy Council of Stark County Ohio Blanche met her husband, James Stanton. They were married on June 9, 1956 and remained happily married for 51 years until James passed away on June 19, 2007. Mrs. Stanton taught Home Economics and Geography in the Flat Rock Michigan Schools until her retirement in 1985. In her retirement, she enjoyed Cairn Terrier dogs and spending time with her husband. Mrs. Stanton is survived by a brother, James Kelley; nephew, Marty Kelley; nieces, Dalton Blankenship and Gemma Kelley; sister-in-law, Agnes Hazard; nephew, Charlie Hoke Kelley III; niece, Betty Gault; brother-in-law, Donald Stanton; sister-in-law, Jeri Stanton; nephews, Douglas Stanton, Clifford Stanton; niece, Shirley Stanton Grate; brother-in-law, Bill Cobb; nephews, Stephen Cobb, Michael Cobb, Robert Cobb; and niece, Cynthia Cobb Todd. Graveside Service 1:30 p.m. MONDAY, August 1, St. Joseph Cemetery, 6440 South High Street Lockbourne, Ohio, Rev. Dr. William L. Snider, Officiating. Arrangements entrusted to the JOHN QUINT TREBONI FUNERAL HOME and CREMATION SERVICE, 1177 W. 5th Avenue.