Read Online Faraway Places by Tom Spanbauer - Free Book Online Page B

The worst—as usual—was physical education class, but I liked Miss Parkinson and my American history class.
    She taught English, Miss Parkinson, and she wasn’t a nun. She had blond curly hair that she stuck her pencil in, and when she talked to the class she would once in a while fluff up her curls, then shake them loose. She used to take a deep breath and pull her stomach in, and straighten out her dress under her belt. Allthe men teachers, especially Mr. Hoffman, the American history teacher, and Mr. Ashly, the science teacher, stopped by during home room to ask her things, like if she wanted coffee or if everything was all right. Mr. Hoffman, and sometimes Mr. Ashly, but never both of them at the same time, would stand outside in the hallway and when Miss Parkinson took a deep breath and pulled her chest up the way she did, and sucked in her stomach, you could see Mr. Hoffman or Mr. Ashly, depending on which one of them was out there in the hallway watching, take a deep breath too.
    Miss Parkinson also taught speech third period. Once, she had us give impromptu speeches. Each of us had to go up and stand in front of the whole class and give a speech on a topic that Miss Parkinson made up right then. I did terrible on the one she gave me: “Important Decisions I Have Made.” I couldn’t tell them about jumping in the river and all it led to. I really hadn’t made any other decisions so I didn’t have much to say. What I ended up saying was that I was glad that I decided to take speech class instead of Spanish class, but I couldn’t say much more than that because right then I hated speech class.
    Jimmy Terrel got the topic of beans. He recited a little poem about how beans give you gas and make you toot. Everybody laughed, even Miss Parkinson. I laughed so hard I had to leave the class. It was funny—farting always seemed funny to me then—and to talk about it in the class made it even funnier. It was too much. I told my mother how I had laughed in speech class and why. I told her Jimmy Terrel’s poem and she laughed just about as hard as I had laughed, so then I went ahead and told her about the time that my father farted—my father was always farting loud when he wasn’t around my mother—when he was fixing the hay rake one day. Our dog, Toby—this was before he died—was sitting right there under my father at the time. When my father farted so loud, Toby’s ears perked up. He tilted his head a little to the side, sniffed, then got out of there real fast.
    I had never seen my mother laugh so hard as when I toldher that story. I loved that she was laughing like that. That day, I decided I would try to make her laugh like that more often.
    I’d studied American history at the St. Joseph’s School, but those Holy Cross nuns didn’t teach American history like Mr. Hoffman did at the Hawthorne Junior High School. He was old and smelled like cigarettes and his own self. He taught us that history was just a story that somebody was telling, and what happened in the story often depended on who was telling it. An interpretation , is what Mr. Hoffman always said that history was—like, for example, we think it was a good deal for us to buy Manhattan for twenty-four dollars in trinkets, but how do the Indians feel about that transaction? And Custer’s Last Stand wasn’t a massacre at all as far as the Indians are concerned. And how would you like it if the Ku Klux Klan hated you because of how you were? It was all a matter of interpretation .
    Mr. Hoffman said that America was formed by people trying to get away so they could be how they were and exercise their right to their own interpretation and not be like governments and religions were saying they had to be.
    It’s a free country , is another thing Mr. Hoffman said over and over. It’s a free country . I started saying that to myself, too: It’s a free country .
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