Whenever it snows I’m taken back to the third grade in Roanoke, Virginia. I don’t remember my teacher’s name, but I can vividly recall the classroom. It was tucked in a corner so there were extra windows. We enjoyed glorious streams of sun and daydreamed as we stared out the window at the breeze lifting the leaves. Wooden desks lined up in neat rows with the teacher’s heavy wood desk at the front. The set up was what we consider outdated now. It didn’t allow for student collaboration, I suppose. The green chalkboard lined the classroom walls with the cursive alphabet stapled above it. I remember the teacher had a cool contraption that held three sticks of chalk to create straight lines on the board. I devoured Ramona Quimby books in that classroom and became anxious every time the teacher didn’t fully erase the chalk.
One day we were asked to write a paragraph with a nature theme. I was always a lover of words and eagerly dove into my story. I wrote about snow. In my story about the origin of snow I said that whenever the angels combed their hair the dandruff falling out was snow. In hindsight that’s a pretty gross concept. But when I was eight I thought it was pretty grand. I imagined rows and rows of angels combing their thick blond locks. Never mind how odd it was that a little brown Indian girl pictured blond angels. I’m sure there’s something more to that, but it’s a topic for another day. I wrote in detail about the angels’ hair and the golden combs they used. I found it all rather romantic.
My teacher was not impressed.
In fact, she was pissed. She called me to front of the class and lectured me from behind her big wood desk, finger pointing, voice shrieking, lips quivering. It was a sacrilege to write about angels and dandruff. Angels were perfect and would not have had such human faults as dandruff. She was fuming that I dare say such things. I was a child and baffled by all this. I was simply using my imagination. But she went on and on about the sacrilege. I was a quiet, meek child so I didn’t make a peep. I nodded my head in deference and rewrote my story. I refrained from writing about how thunder comes from God bowling.