My Roland Babies

I once took a job simply because it was in Austin, not because it was one that I especially wanted or had a great talent for.  As it turned out, I was not cut out for the University of Texas; I felt like a duck on a frozen pond, allegedly in the right place, but unable to function without the proper setting.  After one academic year, I high-tailed it back to Oklahoma, fully intent on being employed at a secondary school by the following fall.  It took until the end of the fall semester to land a job---but it was exactly where I needed to be.

Vickie Earnhart and Gary Lattimore, the junior high and senior high principals of Roland Schools, made something of a joint decision to hire me as an 8th/9th grade English and speech teacher for Lena Henson, who was retiring mid-year.  It was quite a shock to work with 13- to 15-year-olds after working with college students for the previous seven years.  Pretty much immediately I started answering the question, "How do you like your new job?" with the dry response, "I have looked into the pit of hell, and I have seen the devil.  He's 14 years old and has very bad personal hygiene."  That was, well, partly true.  What I didn't tell them was that I was immediately hooked on their funny expressions, twisted sentences, and unaffected openness to the world.  Yes, they were still relatively unaffected then---it was 20 years ago this month that I started there.  There had been no Murrah bombing, no September 11, no war on terror.  All they had known, for the most part, was the fairly plush world that the 80's and 90's appeared to be.  It was a good time to be a kid, and to be their teacher.

I didn't think much about their effect on ME until I saw an old college friend devastated by the death of a neighbor boy who used to come ask my friend John to come outside and play football with him.  John and I had lunch together near his home in Tulsa, and driving him back to his apartment, we came upon a bike accident, where this little boy was gravely injured.  It was several days later that he died. I watched John unravel over this incident, a little puzzled, since he didn't have a close personal relationship with the boy or his family.  But then I happened to think:  what if that had been one of my students?  I felt the impact of that question like a kick in my gut.  I couldn't imagine the pain.  I tried telling a few people about that at the time, but I'm not sure anyone can get the meaning of it without imagining the loss of their own "kids."  What I took from it at the time was that these kids had grown a part of my heart that I hadn't know could exist.  I loved them.  I love them still.

I think that's when I really began to appreciate my kids.  I was younger and a lot more fresh and energetic that I am these days; I know I wouldn't react the same way now at some of the things that happened then.  For example, there was the day that two ornery 7th-hour boys loosened the bolts in my desk chair, so that when I sat down, two of the legs shot off the chair, which then dumped me on the floor, leaving me barely peeking over the edge of my desk like some crazy Kilroy drawing.  I looked at the kids, they looked at me in shock, and I just started laughing my head off.  My dignity was gone---what else could I do?  They laughed, too, but only after I did.  Now, I would probably start off with, "If you laugh, I'll know you did this!"  
Without a doubt, my strongest memories of my Roland years come from all the time I spend with my speech kids.  Even though I hated giving up my weekends for competitions, I loved the bonds that we formed.  On those early morning and late night bus rides, we laughed and celebrated and cried, and I gave more than a few lectures about things you would not believe:  why girls shouldn't sing songs that older boys from other teams teach them (because the song was obscene, but not obviously so to innocent girls); why no one from MY team should EVER, EVER jump out of bushes at customers in a drive-through lane in Poteau, the headquarters for the Gun-Toting Crazy Association of Eastern Oklahoma; why it's essential to show up for the bus at 4 a.m., not 5 a.m.,  when the contest is 150 miles away and starts at 7 a.m.; why I don't want to hear the nonsensical exclamation "Slah!" shouted 45 million times a day.

There are certain bands I hear today and can flash back to those trips, to that time of my life, as vividly as if it were yesterday.  Nirvana, The Cranberries, No Doubt, Sarah McLachlan, and Sheryl Crow take me right back to hauling the debate and academic team kids around in a pre-historic van the color of oatmeal, no frills at all, but at least with a radio we could sing along with. I was driving that same van the last year I was at Roland, when they moved the state competition from OSU to OU.  I wasn't familiar with Norman, and it seemed like every time we got in that van, I checked a curb, made a wrong turn, or ran a stop sign.  (At one memorable stop when we first got to town, I slammed on the brakes just in time to prevent running through an intersection.  Kids and bags went everywhere, and Matthew Dalke, my "adopted" son, was hurtled into the back of the driver's seat.  When he popped back up, he said, "Well, the first thing I'm going to do at the hotel is change my underwear!"  We crossed the interstate to the hotel, and I looked over at Ryan Jones in the passenger seat and said, "Did I say any bad words back there, Ryan?"  He put his hand on my arm and said, "No, Ms. Welker. I was so proud of you.")  By the end of the weekend, they had their fill.  When the group started yelling at me to turn into a Target store, I yelled back that I couldn't; there was a curb there, and I wasn't going to jump it.  I heard a little Kirk Baumann voice in the back say, "I don't know why not.  You've broken every other civic ordinance this weekend."  I'm still not sure Kirk meant for me to hear it, but I wouldn't trade that story for any price.

I can't write any of these things without a huge grin, a chuckle....or even a tear welling up.  It was, in a very real sense, like we all grew up together.  I think they know that as well as I do.

Leaving Roland was one of the most heart-breaking decisions I ever had to make, even though it was absolutely right.  In four and a half years, I didn't make a lot of connections with the community, but I formed friendships with my students that I hope will last forever.  I have a handful of "adopted" kids from those days that I see or communicate with on a regular basis.  Those kids gave me far more than I could give them;  I built my confidence on my experiences with them, so they gave me this career that has made me so happy.  No matter that they are now in their 30's.  No matter what their age, they will always be my Roland babies.