Fast Thinking Saves The Day

              by Bruce Conrad Davis

Lucille, the director of pupil personnel, called. She had received a call from a citizen who preferred to remain anonymous. The caller said a kid of school-age was wandering about the Cozy Rest Stop trailer court behind Buds Auto Auction. The caller thought the kid should be in school. All Lucille knew was the kid lived in a trailer parked in space 23. The tipster had heard his mother call him Rudy. I was to check it out. Since the trailer park was in the Duff attendance area where I was the principal it was my responsibility to get Rudy in school.

Great! I like rain but outside there was a deluge bent on setting a record. I put on my Burberry trench coat, my Burberry scarf and my Scottish tweed hat and ran out to my orange VW bus. I was the best dressed truant officer aka principal on duty at that moment in the worst possible vehicle.

A tree line marked the northern boundary of the school playground. The trailer park was about a yard in from the tree line. Bud's Auto Auction, open Monday through Friday, bordered the eastern edge of the trailer park. The western side was a junk yard.

 As you entered the “park” you couldn't make out if the trailers were cozy. Most were sausage shaped aluminum Airstream trailers circa 1950. They certainly weren't what we now call mobile homes. Most were shabby and in need of repair. Junk Yard Rest Stop would have been a better name for this roundup of aluminum.

Space 23 had an Airstream. I got out of my bus and sidestepping puddles made by way to the door and knocked.

A woman opened the door. She looked like she had stepped out of Tobacco Road, Eskine Caldwell’s novel about Georgia sharecroppers. Her eyes were sunken. Her tanned face was deeply lined. She might've weighed eighty pounds. She wasn’t a spring chicken. She took a determined drag from a hand rolled cigarette and smiled, revealing a sprinkling of teeth.

“Can I help you?” She asked.

“Hello. My name is Bruce Davis. I’m the principal of Duff School just on the other side of the line of trees behind your home.”

“ Nice to meet you.”

“ It’s nice to meet you also. Does Rudy live here?” I asked.

“He does.” 

“Are you related to Rudy?”

“I’m his mother.”

“Is Rudy here now?” I asked.

“He is.”

“May I speak to him?”

“I don’t see why not.” She looked to her right and back in to the trailer.

“Rudy, come here a man wants to talk at you.”

There was a rummaging around and then Rudy squeezed in between the woman and the door frame.

“ Hello Rudy.” I shook his hand. 

“My name is Bruce Davis. I'm the principal of the Duff elementary school. I thought I’d drop by and welcome you to the neighborhood. If you're ever over by Duff stop in and I'll show you around. We're very proud of our school. It was nice to meet you.”

I turned and avoiding now larger puddles walked back to my bus, got in and started back to school. I could hardly wait to call Lucille and tell her Rudy was going on forty and was a dwarf.

Principals are managers.They are part of the management team which includes all of the district office administrators. In the business world principals would be called executives. Perhaps company executives probably don't have to bother with the nitty gritty nuts and bolts of an organization. Not so in the Garvey District. Principals did what had to be done no matter what. Check for nits? No problem. Mop up vomit? You bet.

Home calls, like the one to check on Rudy were routine. There was no end to the reasons that sprung up requiring me to make a home call.

Gus Lukios was an excellent fifth grade teacher. He had epilepsy and couldn't drive. His wife would bring him to school and pick him up after work. Because he didn't drive if Gus needed to speak to the parents of one of his students he’d give them a call if they had a phone.

Gus told me Billy Schuck, one of his students, was frequently absent. Billy would tell Gus he’d been sick. The state provided schools with official “absence forms.” If a student was absent due to illness you sent the form home for the parent to fill out. If the returned form showed illness as the cause of the absence the district didn't lose the funding. Official documentation of illness was important.

Gus had sent home several absence forms with Billy to be filled out but they hadn't been returned. Occasionally Billy's mother scrawled on a scrap paper that Billy had been sick. This didn't work. We needed the reason on the official form.

I gave Gus a pad of forms. “ Gus send these home with a note that they must be filled out and returned by a week from today. Since they don’t have a phone if you don't get them back you and I will make a home call.”

As I expected the notes weren’t returned. Gus got in my bus and we drove over to the apartment where Billy lived. I knocked on the door. The woman who opened the door was close to being a mirror image of Rudy’s mom but not as old.

I identified myself and Gus. We were invited in. After some small talk I explained why it was important for her to return the excuse slips. 

“Well, I get it Mr. Davis but we pretty much live hand to mouth. I'm a smoker but I can't afford them ready-made cigarettes. I roll my own and them there excuse papers sure enough cuts down on my expenses,” she said, pointing down at the coffee table.

I could “sure enough” see her point. On the top of the table were eight perfectly rolled excuse slip cigarettes and a cotton bag of Bull Durham tobacco. She was smoking state paper. You had to love it.

“They hold up real good in a breeze and even when it rains.” She gave me a big smile. She had teeth.

I handed her a pad of excuse slips and a list of the dates Billy had been absent. She promised to fill them out and get them in.

We said good bye and returned to the car. I dropped Gus off at school and headed for a nearby convenience store. I purchased three packages of cigarette papers and two bags of Bull Durham.

I returned to the Schuck apartment and gave Mom the makings. The next day Billy came to school with a wad of excuse slips filled out stating illness for every date on the list.

Sometimes you need to go along to get along. From time to time I’d stop by the apartment, chat for a bit and leave her a bag of Bull Durham and papers. It paid off. Excuse slips were filled out and returned promptly.