A List of Things That Got Me Thrown Into Detention Hall

I can share this wisdom that I gained through "doing my stretch" in detention with you, the innocent (as newborn lambs) now because some of you, maybe two, three, I don't know, will one day see the inside of the coldest, most-cruel place in your school: Detention.

It looks clean. And it is because your school janitor, probably a quiet man, just does his job and does it well and goes home. And here is a scary fact: In his younger days, even he and a buddy knows the tough treatment they received while doing a detention "sentence," or in today's sensitive society, "time," as in those old prison flms.

From 1960 through 1966, our grade school years, we didn't have detention. We had to be escorted by our discipline-minded teacher to the office of our school principal, Mrs. Lucille Mixon, or in "hall slang," "The Dragon Lady," for she had no time to listen to the guilty, just ask that they turn their butts up to her so she could "board" them with her iconic ball and paddle game, but only with the wooden paddle.

Mixon took pleasure in "boarding" butts. I knew it. Our student body knew it, but that story is for another hub.

Note: The aforementioned text of how Mixon took pleasure in boarding butts would make a great episode of South Park. I know this in my heart.

Mixon was not born with any spark of compassion. This fact be documented by a lot of my classmates who witnesses her "stone" heart in action throughout our time in grades one through six. Personally, I can testify to her unsympathetic character. And that alone hurt as bad as the accident I had one time during recess during my second grade year.

African American Students Read in Jail Cell

On March 15, 1960, in Atlanta, GA: Some of the African-American College girls arrested in a city-wide wave of restaurant sit-down demonstrations occupy a female detention room at the city jail. Many of them are studying college textbooks. An apparently well planned series of segregation protests came almost simultaneously at some ten public eating places

Three friends and I were playing "chase," a "playground favorite," no explanation given how to play this game. Just draw straws on whom will be chased and the loser gets chased. Naturally I was the loser who was being chased and I made the near-fatal error of running while looking over my shoulder and then . . .whack! (as in TV's Batman fights), I was on my back on the sidewalk with my forehead bleeding.

My teacher, also without feeling, carried me to Mixon's office and after a third-degree (with my head now bleeding profusely), she said in a coarse, German P.O. W. camp commandant's voice, "I'll get you home." I did not hear any "oh my, are you okay?" "Do you need to go to the hospital?" or "May I call your parents?" None of it. Na da. Even on the way home, Mixon glared at the windshield. She resented me for the accident for it knocked her out of being cruel for the hour she was gone. But she loaned me her antique handkerchief to stop blood, but it didn't. The blood soaked my shirt. This "monster" never offered to walk me to my front door. She kept her car engine running and watched me walk to an empty house for both my parents worked.

Note to all or any of the now-late Mrs. Lucille Mixon's surivors: I did carry Mixon's now-clean handkerchief back to her and if she ever said I didn't, she was a liar. And I just want you to know that now I can tell you the truth of how heartless she really was while she was the principal of our grade school.

In junior high and all the way through senior high, the teachers had a more-severe way of punishing us for simple infractions: "Detention Hall." But if the infraction were of a more-serious nature, the "criminal" was excorted to the office of that principal, a Mr. Joe L. Sargent, a saint compared to Mrs. Mixon. He had patience and was blessed with compassion and understanding. He felt that many times a teacher's emotions can cause them to make a bad decision to get them paddled.

Note to any of the now-late Mr. Joe L. Sargent's survivors: Mr. Sargent was the best. He was humble and so understanding with us. I can say in a truth, not boasting, that I never received one paddling from Mr. Sargent, although I deserved some.

Now for a shocking-dose of honest reality. I will share with you now

A List of Things That Got me Thrown Into Detention Hall

In Junior High, 1968

• I, with two friends, shot the steam pipes in the room of our History teacher, a Mr. Norris Pharr, who was most of the time, cool. But someone squealed on Donnie Avery, my deceased cousin, and Dwight "Oz" Ausborn and Pharr not only gave us detention, but paddled us in the boy's restroom. (It wouldn't have made sense for him to paddle us in the girls' restroom.)
• In the eighth-grade, I told Barbara Abercrombie, a well-developed blond for her age, that she had great legs. And I was honest. She did have legs to die for. I got in a jam with that remark. Question: Why didn't our History teacher, a Mr. Neal Childers get into trouble for he said the same thing to us boys, not Barbara?
• I threw a spitball at my friend, Joanne Moses, who couldn't measure her I.Q., and she just grinned. But my elderly Study Hall teacher, Lily Mae Howell, now deceased, glared at me and said something about a two-period detention, but thank God for her failing memory for she forgot all about it.
• The next week in Howell's Study Hall period, now-deceased Jimmy Avery, a bully and out-right mean guy and his pal, Danny Young were passing gas then lighting their disposable lighters to see the gas flame. Both of them smoked. Howell was afraid of these hoodlums and tried her best to accuse me of this dreadful act, but "that" time, I stood my ground and she mildly-reprimanded Avery and Young.

In Sophomore Year, 1970

• I, along with my entire Science Class cheated on a test, but when our teacher, assistant football coach, Freddie Burnette, asked "everyone who cheated raise your hands," we all raised our hands, he was stunned at our honesty. But I remember getting a one-period Detention and a stern lecture about integrity.
• In my Agriculture class taught by Mr. M.F. Moore, now retired, our duty on Mondays were to clean-up Sargent Stadium, our football stadium named for Joe L. Sargent, our principal I told you about earlier in this story, a class member, Donnie Kaye, who later went to prison for car theft, picked up a hefty-size condom on a stick and shook it at Mr. Moore who thought it to be a snake. The entire class horse-laughed and this caused Moore to yell at us very angrily. This incident caused me and a few more to almost get Detention.
• I tapped a good friend, Joan Ray, on her left shoulder when was sitting behind her in one class. She kept looking for whom did this. Our teacher, a Mr. Real noticed me and never said anything to be about my playful act until after class. I had time to think about my playful act in the next day's detention hall.

In Junior Year, 1971

• 
  I shoved (only in fun) my cousin, Donnie Avery into a display in now-deceased Mrs. Gladys Jennings' Literature Class. She was visibly-upset and guess who took the fall?
• Remember my piece on what things my P.E. teacher, coach L.E. Fowler hated? I forgot to answer, "Yes, sir," in one class when he took an entire boys' P.E. class to do some clean-up work around the new house that he had just built. All of us were on his pickup-truck loaded with trash and I was standing on the right side running board when he asked me, "Steve, you okay?" "Huh?" I foolishly-replied. Fowler was going in reverse and when he applied the brakes the entire load of trash plus all of the P.E. class went to the ground and he even miscalled my name. You know the rest of the story.
• One time which I will not forget was when I, this time, was not doing anything playful, and caught the sight of a girl in the next grade whose name was Joan. She was in a classroom across from me, but the green dress she was wearing almost made me die of a cardiac arrest for it was just short enough to be legal. My teacher came over where I was sitting and didn't say a word. after ten minutes, she whispered, "Is she pretty?" After class I got a nice-but-stern lecture about lusting for girls.
• These are just the highlights. See if your children are doing any of these. And if they are, please do not talk about me in a rough way.

Thank you,
KENNETH