Topic: Cheating

Thom Dunn

No question about it: I had cheated, taking a small poem for some use in an English theme. But Miss Ballard, our 9th grade English teacher found out about it and called me on it. Here's how she called me on it. In class while we were all seated she shouted at me:

"Blah, blah, blah....that YOU CHEATED ! AND NOW THE WHOLE SCHOOL KNOWS YOU'RE A CHEAT !!!.”

Shouting was her common mode of upbraiding students and she did it a lot, and so, curiously, few took notice of what she said.

[ I want to interject here that copying a single poem does not per se make me for all time A cheat. ]

Poor, aging , single, apoplectic, heavy Miss Ballard. I recall she gave her "cheat" one more chance during a spelling bee (bea) calling from the back of the auditorium that "kindergarten" was spelled with a "t" and not a "d". I spoke into the stage mic: : "I did say "d" at which point someone in the audience opined, "Well at least he's honest" So what think you, reader: Half a cheat ? The occasional cheat ? Still wholly a cheat ?

Now, in 1953, Miss Ballard had not been allowed to marry. (One woman was discovered to have had a secret marriage and was immediately fired. ) So it was that when her father died that year, her father for whom she was the sole care giver, she was bereft. She stood in a fine blue dress in the corridor staring at the floor, hands clasped in front of her while the school kids flowed around her and (once out of her sight ) stared at one another and made inquisitor faces.

I want to conclude, as God is my judge, that I took no satisfaction at that moment, or since, in her obviously crushing grief. This was bigger than any cheating, too big for vindictiveness. SHE had not cheated and now she was left alone in age, something I know about.  She was more, it turned out, than a battle axe, as I claim still to be more than a cheat.