Fanning's Flamingos

Even though she was basically a walking corpse, I shouldn't have treated my sixth grade teacher with such abject contempt. In these past fifteen years, I've hopefully gained a modest perspective. Now I think back on Ms. Fanning as someone's grandmother. I imagine her narrative as a tale of an educator who devoted her life to improving the intellectual faculties of Wheat Ridge's youth. When I was 12, however? She was just a dumb old hag getting in between me and my recess.

Up until about sixth grade, I was such a sweet boy. I remember launching my hand skyward at any unsolved blackboard puzzle. Ms. Key, my kindergarten teacher, would direct the class' attention towards my amazing displays of acumen. Same with McNally, Etter, McCall. Misters Fays and Ingram received my utmost respect and attention. My speech was colored with polite deference to each, my homework done with earnest effort. The mere threat of punishment weakened any inkling of mischief I might have been courting.

Wilmore Davis' equivalent to the death penalty was The Bench. This famed purgatory awaited any misbehaving student who incurred the wrath of Mr. Taylor, our lunch room attendant. I remember now that Mr. Taylor was little more than a harmless, wounded veteran there to ensure that no food fights broke out and that schedules ran precisely. Early in my Wilmore career, though, he was the warden to Sing Sing prison, and I dare not piss him off and earn my inaugural trip to "The Bench."

Around the time of my final year in elementary school, something changed in my general attitude. Blame it on the hormones, Beavis and Butthead, or maybe some troubles at home. Whatever the cause, I found myself bereft of any residual innocence. Instead of an intense yearning for a teacher's approval, I went for cheap laughs. Making a spectacle of the situation was far superior to another gold star. I'm sorry, Mike Urbana, that I punched you in the nose because everyone thought you were ugly.

And I'm sorry, too, Ms. Fanning. I'm sorry that I took your stuffed animal, a moose named Bullwinkle, from your desk. I'm not asking you to admit that the name was contrived and unoriginal. I'm just telling you that each time I hid him from you, a little piece of my youth was dying. Sure, it looked like I was taking pleasure in your calls for his safe return as I rolled in laughter. The dismay as you searched the room for his coffee colored hide might have kept a younger, kinder me in check. Instead, I loved to sneak him onto high shelves, behind bookcases, or, most maliciously, dangling from the cord on the projector screen, a noose around Bull's neck. My fellow students loved to see you searching, and I knew they basked in that light by an act of my bratty hand.

Towards the end of the school year, any veil of respect I maintained finally disintegrated. Field Day was approaching, and God how I loved Field Day. How could I not, a youth with boundless energy and a penchant for sports? Indeed, some of my fondest memories revolve around that springtime tradition. The ribbons, the return of warm air. It meant that another year was upon us. With it, a slightly bigger, faster, more rambunctious me.

Back when I was still a decent child, when Ms. Etter was my teacher and the Fourth Grade my home, I was allowed to carry the flag during the National Anthem. Had you been in the crowd that day, you might have thought I had been awarded a Silver Star from then-President Clinton himself. The pride on my face must have looked positively awkward, given the fact that I was merely walking across a crumbling basketball court with a five foot long wooden flag pole driven into my belly. Even more awkward was my sock selection. Mid-calf, forest green. I'm an iconoclast, what can I say?

Again, a sweet memory derived from Field Day. My seventh birthday, September 10, 1988. My recollection tells me a story of my father. He knows I love Field Day so dearly that he themes a party for me and my friends based upon the idea of an Olympiad of sorts. An autumn Field Day with ribbons for footraces, basketball marksmanship, a bean bag toss. My father understood just what I wanted, and without my insistent asking, he gave it to me.

I don't really know if that's how things went down. It very could well be that the party was my mother's idea. Even if my theory that my father truly connected with me that day is false, I'll keep it. There are few times when I feel so close to him.

But then fast forward roughly half a decade, and I wasn't the young, giggling son I once was. This new incarnation was seated in the front row of Ms. Fanning's class; close enough to be supervised. Far enough away, I'll also note, from her desk; abode of one now tattered and soiled stuffed animal with a name lifted from a cartoon.

And on this magnificent spring day, only a week before the whole of Wilmore Davis poured out onto the spacious green behind the school for a full day of recreation and competition preempted only by a pledge of allegiance to a flag held aloft by some unsullied soul, each class selected a mascot. Behind these self ascribed monikers, etched with associated art and pertinent information (grade, teacher's name) onto a large piece of butcher paper, the whole class would parade into the anticipating vision of parents.

Ms. Fanning held the chalk in her bony fingers preparing to list our suggestions. We were 12, and the limits of our creativity, even collectively, were oppressive. Alliteration seemed to garner much attention as the hopeful called out their best attempts to name our class.

"Fanning's Flames!" A cheer rang out. Swiftly, though, as it's wont to do, the rumor mill claimed a victim. Mr. Fisher, the fellow sixth grade teacher, was just across the hall. It was a known fact that he would consider just such a nickname.
Nix the fire.

"Fanning's Flamingos." Oh! Intriguing. A bit unorthodox, and while normal behavior dictates the selection of mascots sporting teeth, a stilt legged pink bird might be just the thing to tame banality. Flamingos it might be...

"Fanning's Panthers": alliteration be damned. "Fanning's Wildcats": traditional, and again forswearing the "f." "Fanning's Flatworms," "Fliers," and "Fiends." All could be considered. Surely we as a class could improve upon these suggestions. Perhaps my hat belonged in the ring.

I found myself drawn to the alliteration, perhaps out of habit after being inured with Key's Kickers, McNally's Monsters, Etter's Eagles, and McCall's Macaws. What could I possibly suggest that could compete with a semester and a half of animal abduction? How could I enumerate my hurt at the irony of my father's introduction to my "wicked" stepmother at, you guessed it, Field Day. That fucking traitor! That was our day!

"Ha!" I thought. "That old bag of bones won't even know what I mean, I'm so smart." The hubris rattled in my brain like a grenade. "Fanning's Ferocious Fellatios." I offered quietly. A secret between an old woman, those two lucky students seated adjacent, sadly ignorant of the punchline's definition, and myself.

"Are you sure you want to name our class that?"

My inside joke with myself became instantly less funny when she was in on the ruse. I'd put the final nail in the coffin of Field Day's mystique, though she politely let it drop.

We marched onto the fields led by a pink bird of doom. In several weeks, we'd relinquish this playground for youth's ultimate space; summer. We were finished with Wilmore Davis. And I've no doubt, it was ready for me to go.