School started the day after Labor Day in 1970, whether I wanted it to or not. I was 14, in 9th grade, and still at the junior high. I suppose it wasn't so bad: at least I was finally one of the older kids and I knew where everything was. It seemed to me that Junior High students could be divided into three groups. There were the cool guys, the cheerleaders with beautifully long hair and super cute clothes and the jocks who played every sport; the nobodies (I was one of them) who were not so cute, popular, talented or rich, but they were OK; and the want-a-be hippies who hung out on the street corner across from school, smoked behind the bushes and talked about dope. They still scared me, but since I didn't know them personally they didn't bother me too much.
One good thing about starting 9th grade was finally being old enough to go across the street to release time Seminary. For an hour we went to a scripture study class put on by our church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints, (the Mormons). I'd heard all about seminary from my older brother, Keith, who started the year before. Every day he came home with awesome stories about his cool teacher and the jokes he told.
My teacher’s name was Brother Moss. This was his first year teaching, and he wasn't very sure of himself, nor was he a very good disciplinarian. The kids, especially the boys, really gave him a hard time. My hour was probably the worst, as there were a lot of popular boys in class who thought they were very cool and never stopped talking. It was kind of fun at first, but after awhile they got pretty annoying. Poor Brother Moss eventually gave up trying to teach lessons and made us read the scriptures all class long, which was extremely boring.
Although I was not one of the talkers, I didn't help things out. I thought Brother Moss was a terrible teacher, and a lot of the time I hid an Agatha Christie murder mystery inside my scriptures so it would look like I was reading the scriptures when I wasn't. I didn’t do the assigned reading at home, either, so I didn't learn very much.
Each week we had a test over the chapters we should have studied. Since I hadn't read the assignments I didn’t do well on the tests, and I failed the mid term exam. That was really embarrassing. I knew I shouldn’t fail any tests, but especially not in Seminary. Instead of feeling bad for not doing my work, though, I blamed Brother Moss for being a terrible teacher.
We took the midterm on Wednesday. Thursday, after Seminary, some of the boys in my class snuck into the girl’s bathroom and put a cherry bomb behind the toilet. Somehow they rigged a long fuse, so they were gone before the explosion, but it wasn't hard for Brother Moss to figure out what happened. The next day when we went to Seminary there was a sign on the door telling us that we had all been expelled, and to go back across the street to the school auditorium.
Our Junior High School Principal was waiting for us when we straggled into the auditorium, and he really read us the riot act! As well as being our principal, he was also a member of our Church, and a Bishop. He yelled at us for the whole hour, telling us what bad examples we were, how much damage we had caused in the Seminary building, and how mean we had been to Brother Moss.
I was never more embarrassed in my life, or scared! How could I be kicked out of seminary? When the principal told us we should be ashamed of how mean we'd been to poor Brother Moss, a brand new teacher, I didn’t feel sorry for him at all. As far as I was concerned, it was his fault I had a bad grade in Seminary and had been kicked out, and it didn't make me feel any better when at the end of the hour the principal told us we'd only been suspended for the day.
I went home that afternoon afraid to face mom and dad. I had been suspended from Seminary, I had a failing grade, and I was in so much trouble. To my surprise, though, when I told dad and mom about what had happened I didn’t get in any trouble at all. In fact, they thought it was kind of funny.
“I bet those boys learned their lesson,” Dad said, and he let it go at that. I didn't
We had planned a camping trip for that weekend so dad could take my brothers deer hunting. Mom and my sisters and me came along just for fun. The weather was perfect, the fire smelled good, we had marshmallows and hot dogs to roast, but I didn’t enjoy myself. I was too upset about Seminary. I remember sitting by the fire that night, stewing over all that had happened, with my stomach twisting itself into knots.
Early the next morning dad and the boys went hunting. Mom and my sisters played games in the camper, but I sat outside by the fire and worried. My stomach was still in knots, but it was easing up a little. Finally I went for a walk in the woods, and as my anger subsided, I started to think clearer.
“It wasn't my fault that we got suspended,” I consoled myself. “I didn't have anything to do with those boys and the cherry bomb, and I'm not going to get in trouble for them. Everything is going to be OK, you know.”
Once the fear was gone, I even began to feel a little sorry for Brother Moss. He didn’t have any experience handling teenagers, and our particular class was really tough.
“If I'd tried harder and done my homework I wouldn't have failed the tests, you know,” I lectured to myself. “And I could have been friendlier to Brother Moss, and been at least one person in class who listened.”
By the time we went home Saturday afternoon I was feeling much happier. I went to church Sunday morning, humbled and repentant, and by that night I had made up my mind to go to Seminary the next day and apologize to my teacher.
Monday I walked across the street to the Seminary building feeling better than I had the whole semester. I was going to tell Brother Moss I was sorry, I was going to work hard, and I was going to try to make his first year of teaching a success.
But Brother Moss wasn’t there, and I never saw him again. Our new Seminary teacher told us that Brother Moss had quit teaching to become an accountant. The new teacher was excellent. He knew how to handle teenagers, even stinking boys, and he made learning the scriptures fun. But in the end, I I learned more from Brother Moss than I did the whole rest of the year. I learned about me. I learned that I don't like getting into trouble, and when I do I get mad. It's still hard, but I also learned that if I'll let myself calm down things will look better and I can figure out how to solve the problem. So, thanks Brother Moss, wherever you are. You may not have been born to be a teacher, but you sure taught me.
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