The Smallest Things

Ricky L. Terry

There were many people over the years who would influence the way I thought. Most never knew I was learning from them, which explains a few of the bad habits I have had to break. To be fair, most of us don't realize the true impact we can have on someone else. My parents were huge contributors to who I am today. Mom was always learning some new fact or idea, and dad was always reading something. Today, I find myself being a blend of the two.

Outside of my parents, there was one person who made the biggest impact on my future through an almost insignificant gesture. Sometimes it's the smallest things that make the biggest difference in someone's life and Mrs. Chaffin, the teacher of class 3A at Louisa Elementary school in Kentucky, certainly qualifies as one who made a big difference by recognizing a potential problem and caring enough to do something about it.

I had lived in Ohio my entire life and had spent eight long years making friends, watching cartoons on Saturday morning and developing highly evolved roadways that snaked through the tall, perpetually golden grass, in the field beside our house. Every day I would get up and eat breakfast while watching Captain Kangaroo on the old wood-framed monstrosity that brought Mr. Green Jeans into our living room every morning and Bugs Bunny every Saturday. Mom would call out to me with a voice that just seemed to start the day off right: "Rick, it's time to get ready for school!" I would hop up from my spot in front of the TV and put my Flintstones cereal bowl in the spotless, porcelain sink. After getting my favorite cowboy boots on, I would

try to run out the door to meet my buddies on the way to school. Dad would act like a linebacker about to tackle me, while mom would laugh at the silliness that took place every morning. Dad would put his hand on my head, tousling my medium-length shaggy hair as I walked out the door and say, "Go learn something, so you can teach me tonight. "

"Shouldn't you have already learned somethin'?" I would think. I was pretty sure he knew everything but I always tried to learn some fact that I could "teach" him. Of course, he and mom would always be amazed at this new-found fact, and that made me want to learn more things every day. I loved every minute of my life, but it was about to change.

Dad came home one day, and with seeming excitement in his voice proclaimed, "We're moving to Kentucky."

"Holy Cow," I thought. "This is gonna be cool!" I didn't really think about why we were moving. I didn't know that dad was going to be laid off, but instead transferred to Kentucky.

Mom and Dad saw no reason to burden me with this unnecessary information that must have weighed heavily on their shoulders; instead, they made everything seem like a fun-filled adventure.

Kentucky was one of my favorite places in the world. My grandma, grandpa, and all of my cousins lived there. All of us boys would spend the long, hot summer days "playing army" and climbing the thickly wooded mountainsides. The sweat would roll down our chubby cheeks leaving, what appeared to be, squiggly roads through the dirt on our faces. Life could not get any better. I was about to start school as a real Kentuckian and I was ready to go.

Mom walked with me in to the classroom that first day. I was surprised to see that it looked a lot like the ones back in Ohio. I'm not sure why I expected it to be different, but I did. I suppose I thought it would be dark, with dirt floors and maybe a pot-belly stove for heat like in

Little House on the Prairie. Instead, there was the American flag in the corner and there were desks, lights and a blackboard, just like in Ohio. The pictures of the presidents were taped above the blackboard, starting with George Washington and culminating with Richard M. Nixon. On the opposite side of the room, sitting on the gray, rectangular, metal heater was a box that I immediately recognized. It was a reading program called the SRA Reading Lab. The color coded cards began with purple and went through about two dozen different colors, and as the student mastered a topic they would advance to the next colored level in the box. We would have a contest at my old school to see who could get to the highest level in the shortest amount of time and at the end of the grading period the winner, who was always me, got a can of pop and a giant candy bar. My excitement quickly waned when I realized that there was no reward here and worse yet, I had to go back about a dozen levels because that was where this class was reading. Because I had already finished these levels, to do them again made them much too easy for me, I soon found myself getting into mischief.

As I sat there on this particular day, completely focused on my important task of slowly rolling moistened wads of paper into perfect little spheres that would soon find their home in the chocolate brown, loosely coiled springs that was Tammy Sue Johnson's hair, I heard my name called. In that instant, ice cold fingers of fear seemed to reach around my neck and slowly squeeze the life out of me, one agonizing breath at a time. Once again I heard the words slice through the air like a missile intent on destroying its target. "MR. TERRY."
"Ugh. This is not going to be good." I thought, hoping against hope that another Mr.

Terry had miraculously appeared in the classroom.

"Just what do you think you are doing, young man?"

"Um, nothing ma'am," I sheepishly responded, terrified at the thought of getting into trouble.

"Outside. In the hall. Now." Her eyes had somehow turned as black as the rich veins of coal that ran throughout the surrounding mountains, yet they seemed to glow eerily red, like some kind of beast from the place-I-wasn't-allowed-to-say. I was certain that I heard a lone bugler playing TAPS in the distance, as a collective "oooooooo" from my classmates filled my ears. I opened the door and it seemed that the hall was as black as a tomb, 30 degrees cooler than the room I was walking out of, and was surely about to swallow me whole. Mrs. Chaffin came out and just stared at me for about an hour, or so it seemed, until I became so uncomfortable that I had to speak.

"Ma'am, are you going to paddle me?" My backside cheeks seemed to sting at the thought of it.

"What do you think I should do?" she asked. "I don't know."

"Tell me what's wrong. You're one of the smartest kids I have ever had in my class, but you're not really showing that right now. Tell me what I can do to help, Ricky, because at this rate, son, you're heading for trouble."

I was stunned. I had no thought that she would do anything except crush me like a bug and now she wants to know how she can help me.
"Are you bored?" she asked.

Still unsure, I answered softly, "Yes ma'am." "Why are you bored?"
"I've already finished all of those cards we're doing."

"All of them?"

"All the way to lime green in the 12-14 part," I said.

"I see. Why didn't you tell me?"
"I don't know," I said looking down at my shoes.

She seemed to transform from what I assumed would be the purveyor of my death into a regular person, right before my eyes. The tone of her voice had grown soft, almost human."Rick, let's go back over some of the cards that you already finished, so I know you're not just pulling my leg and if it's true, you can finish the segment you were on when you moved here and then, if you don't mind, I want you to help me teach the ones who are having a hard time with reading. Would that be ok?" Everything seemed to change at that point. I was still reading to complete the cards, but now I was reading to get a really, really cool prize. I get to teach. That meant I was going to have the freedom to roam around a little in class and I could do things that others weren't allowed to do. I would be able to teach them something, just like my dad had always asked me to do for him.

In one smooth, subtle motion Mrs. Chaffin had just made a huge difference in my life.

She could have chosen to punish me, or call my parents, or she could have just let me go on and not cared about what happened to me. Instead, she chose to see what I needed and worked with me. I can still hear my dad's voice say, "Go learn so you can teach me," and on that day Mrs. Chaffin spoke a companion word to me. "Now that you've learned it, go teach someone else" and that is what I have tried to do. When I read something, I have always tried to read it as if I were going to help someone else learn it. The simple thing that Mrs. Chaffin did for me wasn't earth-shattering, but that one small effort on her part certainly changed my path. So it seems to be true; sometimes it is the smallest things that make the biggest difference in someone's life.