PipeDreams
One Teacher's Journey
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Friday came quickly. Instead of Centro bus, I wrangled a bus from the transportation people out at the COES. They sent us a rickety, yellow heap and a driver that thought she was trying out for the Indy 500. I held my breath all the way. "Damn bus breaks down constantly," she yelled to me. I was sitting in the back with the kids; "battery went dead on it twice this week already." "Dead?" Max jumped to his feet, his ears perking up at the mention of the word. Pam looked at him, exasperated. "DEAD," he repeated, "this bus is definitely gonna die!" His voice had become very self-righteous. I could hear his imaginative mind clicking away explanations to himself. "Ever been to this farm before?" the driver asked. "No," Pam answered. "Well, watch out for the farmer's wife. She's crazier than hell." Rose and I exchanged glances. Oh God, I thought, what have I gotten us into now. The farmer's wife turned out to be a fat, white haired, friendly, old lady. She had on red rubber boots, the kind everybody wore as a kid and she smelled distinctly of manure. I liked her instantly. Her hair was wild and stuck out under the straw hat that she wore on her head. A beautiful, brown and white, longhaired cat was hanging off her shoulder. It looked like a scene right out of Lil’ Abner. "You kids glad to be out of school?" she asked. The kids yelled back their appreciation. She turned to the side and hissed out a long, yellow, stream of spit. About three of them tried the same thing. Simone's spit hanging in a gooey, glob near her mouth. She giggled with pleasure. "Not like that, Honey," the old woman said, "like this." She spit again, showing Simone how to direct the spit more accurately. She had the attention of Phoebe and Rudy, I watched her talk to them, and knew a genius was at work. "Want to see the maple syrup first?" she asked the kids. They were so excited to be on a real farm. Their eyes were filling up with all the new sights. It was still winter and a little snow covered the cold, frozen ground. We sloshed our way through it, over to the maple trees, with the worn buckets nailed into them. Syrup dripped out in slow, laborious drops. "Can't rush these things," she told them, "everything in due time." We all had on our winter coats, but all she wore were a pair of farmer jeans and a flannel shirt. I think it was the first time I'd ever seen a pair of farmer jeans on a real farmer. "Come on over to the shed," she continued, "we'll show you how we boil the syrup up." The shed was across the road and looked like it had been there for a century. She opened the door to the shed. A ton of smoke from the boiling syrup poured out and covered us. Two or three cats screeched and ran out from under some wooden barrels when she opened the door. Phoebe's nails dug into my arm and Rudy started screaming. "Mommmmmmmmmy, MMMoooommmy!" I couldn't say I blamed her, the shed looked like a good prop for a Halloween play. "Don't worry, sweetie," the old woman consoled Rudy, "your mother wouldn't be caught dead in this dump." I could hear Max whispering the words " Dead, dead," as she walked us through the dark insides of the little lean-to. The syrup was being slowly boiled in huge, cauldron like pots. She gave us a taste of the sweet, sticky stuff. It was the best syrup I'd ever had and before we left I bought a quart of it from her. I thought we'd make pancakes next week in school and pour some on them. "How about seein ' the animals now?" she asked the kids. They had grown used to the darkness of the shed and were beginning to trust the old woman's words. "Do they bite?" Jane asked. Her big eyes, full of suspense. "Only each other," she answered, "and only on occasion." The barn, where the animals were housed, was near the white farmhouse that the woman and her husband lived in. He waved to us as we walked by. His thin, wiry body had seen many days of hard farm labor. "Enjoy yourself!" he hollered out to us as we went into the barn. If this was what the bus driver thought was crazy, then bring on the crazies. These people were beautiful, natural and had an innate understanding of kids. The barn was filled with several dozen mooing cows. The place smelled terrible and I could see why. "Hold your noses," she warned us, "the girls have been really crapping up a storm in here!" The 'girls' were cows lined up in stalls. Their rear ends pointing toward us. Huge, globs of brown manure came plopping out of them from all directions.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
Snow is streaming from the sky as a short yellow school bus pulls up to a red brick building that is well on the plus side of fifty years old. A young girl, approximately ten years old, exits the bus through an open window and runs down the pathway to the building. She hurls herself into the school and within a few feet finds her classroom. The ceiling of the class is gnarled with enormous steam pipes, anywhere from two to twelve inches in diameter. The pipes are already at work, grunting and hissing their way to heating the class. The girl grabs a pair of scissors and opens them at her throat. "I’ll kill myself now if you don’t sing a song from ‘South Pacific’." The kid’s eyes are wild and her greasy hair is matted to her forehead. I begin to hum a few bars of ‘Happy Talk’ as I calmly take the scissors from her hands. She quiets down almost immediately. I help her take off her thin coat and note that her feet do not have socks on them. Class has started on a Monday morning in an upstate New York public school. Pipe Dreams: One Teacher’s Journey is a nonfiction memoir of an eight-year journey teaching emotionally disturbed children. Written in the first person by their teacher, this unique account is fascinating, humorous, and conveys the inner workings of public school. These kids’ lives will engross you and touch your heart.
About the Author
Antoinette Magaletta McClure received her Bachelor of Arts from Caldwell College in 1971. Her Masters in Education for Emotionally Disturbed Children was awarded to her in 1974 from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a native of New Jersey, but has been living and teaching in upstate New York for the past twenty-eight years. Antoinette’s most current educational achievement has been the inclusion in Who’s Who in American Teachers, year 2000. She currently resides on a five-acre estate of Norway spruce trees with her husband Dan and cat Escher.