Friday's Internet Edition, July 25, 2008.
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Features Editor
- Susie Truell grabbed my face with both her hands and peered at me.
“Oh, you definitely need a nose,” she said with a no-nonsense nod, turning my face this way and that way to see just where the nose should go. “Yep. There’s no way out of it.”
Out of her pocket came a black makeup pencil of some kind. She grabbed my face again and proceeded to color me a black button nose. Whiskers snaked their way across my cheeks.
“Mmhmm,” she said, clearly satisfied with her handiwork. “Mmhmm. That’s much better.”
It was Wednesday morning and yours truly was at Liberty Drive Elementary School preparing to read a Dr. Seuss book to a class of third-graders.
I was nervous.
I have no idea why, really.
I took a public speaking class in college and got an A.
I can walk up to perfect strangers and interview them without hesitation.
I talk to people I don’t know while I’m in line at the grocery store (which I think is a Southern thing, since we Yankees don’t really do that).
In my time at this newspaper, I have interviewed Elizabeth Dole, Howard Coble, Erskine Bowles, Jerry Dockham, Stan Bingham, Hugh Holliman, and officials of just about every kind in this city and county.
Why be nervous about reading to third-graders?
Well, to start with, kids are judgmental. They don’t miss a trick, and even the slightest mistake is noticed. And besides, there’s just something about having 20 pairs of eyes on you that’s a bit nervewracking.
So when Susie Truell — who spends a great deal of time volunteering at the school and is known widely as “Maw” — decided I also needed to wear the red-and-white striped hat, I was a little reluctant.
“Well, you’ve got a nose and whiskers,” Susie said. “You’ve just got to have the hat to go with it.”
This sounded far too practical to argue with, so I donned the trademark red-and-white striped hat.
But what book to read?
On a table in the LDES media center were dozens of books to choose from.
“Do you have The Butter Battle Book?” I asked. “That was my favorite as a little kid.”
One of my student escorts pawed through the pile and found it quickly. It wasn’t the cover I remembered, but there it was. “Okay,” I said. “Off we go!”
My escorts — and I’m glad I had them, because I could get lost in a paper bag without much effort — led me dutifully to their classroom.
The students were taking some kind of a test, and they were just finishing as I walked in the door.
They looked at me expectantly. I looked at them apprehensively. With a deep breath, I pulled out a poem written by fourth-grader Meri-Michael Dailey.
“I have a red-and-white hat,” I began. “Yes, I am a cat.”
They giggled, so I figured I was on the right track.
I finished the poem and announced that I would be reading The Butter Battle Book to them for their Dr. Seuss celebration. They seemed interested, so I began.
For those of you who don’t know (how could you not!), The Butter Battle Book describes the “war” between the Zooks and the Yooks. One group eats their bread with the butter side down, and one eats it with the butter side up. They’re both completely appalled by each other’s habits, and a wall has been constructed to keep them separate.
The story is told by a grandfather talking to his grandson as he recalls his days with the Zook-Watching Border Patrol, as he gave any Zook who dared come close “a twitch with my tough-tufted prickley Snick-Berry Switch.”
But when the Zooks fought back, the switches gave way to Triple-Sling Jiggers, then Jigger-Rock Snatchems —even a Kick-A-Poo Kid that was “loaded with powerful Poo-A-Doo Powder and ants’ eggs and bees’ legs and dried-fried clam chowder.”
Suffice to say that if you can make it through The Butter Battle Book without stuttering or mispronouncing anything, you’re doing great.
I got through it all right, I suppose, and even had some fun doing it.
Afterward, I was pretty thirsty and figured a quick trip to the grocery store was in order before I made my way back to the Times office.
This turned out to be an unfortunate decision, since it wasn’t until I walked into the Julian Avenue Food Lion and folks started looking at me strangely that I realized I still had the nose and whiskers drawn on my face.
And, of course, it was at that very time that half of Thomasville had decided to run to the grocery store.
But hey — a little public humiliation never hurt anybody, right? Right.
(March 11)