TUFF ENOUGH???

OK it has been over a week since my Mother was buried and I am still having a little trouble accepting that. All of the rest of my family have blogged about her but I am really struggling trying to put this together but here goes.

My Mother lived until she was almost 93 years old (92 and 10 months). Thirty-five of those years she felt like she should have died before she got that old (her Dad died at 57 and she thought she was destined to do the same). Just after her 57th birthday she and my dad drove up to Montana to visit us. I thought it was nice to have them come but they only stayed a few hours and then went home. I found out the next day that my Mother had a bleeding ulcer and thought she was going to die so she had come clear to Montana to say good-bye to me and my family. She got home and they put her in the hospital for a week or so and they got the ulcer checked and the bleeding stopped and she was good to go again.

This is going to be a random post about my Mother and I will probably do a few more but this is one recollection from my school years.

My Mother was as school teacher and taught for 45 years (four full generations of kids) in the same town. She taught me in fourth grade. One of the girls in the class told her Mother she was sorry for me because my Mother liked all the kids in class better than she liked me. The fact of the matter was that she could help me with the work at home after school so didn't want to be bothered by me during class.

We had an Indian boy from the Hopi Nation come and live with a family that lived on a farm outside of town. He and his little brother came there so they could get a better education than down on the reservation. George and I had a lot of problems with each other--I'd push him and he'd shove me. We both just kept it up all through class day after day after day. My Mother would separate us, make us appologize, keep us on other sides of the room, etc. She tried everything she could think of until it about got her down. Then one day she decided she'd fix it for good.

She dismissed all the class to the playground except for me and George. When all the class was outside she had us move the desks to the wall and then told us to get after it and fight it out. Then she locked us in the room and went out on the playground to make sure the rest of the class was OK. She came back about every ten minutes to see how the fight was progressing. We were doing lovely. He was beating on me and I was beating on him and we were both getting bruised up and sore but neither of us was going to quit---no matter what---I think we fought for about forty minutes. By then we were both beat up and so tired we couldn't do much.

Mom came back into the room and asked us if we were finished. We both said yeah. She made us shake hands, put the desks back out in the middle of the room and go to our desks then she brought the rest of the class back in and we went on with lessons.

From that day on George and I were good friends. I would spend the weekend with him on the farm or he'd spend the weekend at our house. He went to school with us for two years and then never came back. I missed him a lot after they went home to stay. I can also tell you for sure that there was never anyone that beat me up as bad as George did---NEVER---not saying I never lost a fight but I took a beating that day. A LONG AND WELL REMEMBERED BEATING.

Today if a teacher did that they would terminate them on the spot---the point of all this is to let you know that my Mother understood that when boys fight it out they are generally good friends after it is over. Probably not a good thing but that's the way it is.