Ronald Reagan
Way back in 19-and-81 I was in the 6th grade. One fine day, I was outside with the other ‘tweens’, hanging around in the sun after having eaten a wholesome hot-lunch. Everyone was trying to decide if it was appropriate to play or attempt to act cool. Most just ended up being obnoxious in incomprehensible ways, as 6th graders will do.
When we were called in, the four teachers sat us all down on the floor of one room, instead of us going back to four separate rooms. Something was afoot. I thought maybe we were in for something fun –maybe a raffle!
Instead, they wheeled in a TV, quietly and soberly and started figuring out where to plug it in. I thought maybe this was the “adult education” I had heard rumors of.
I was getting a little bit more queasy and sweaty, sitting on the floor in a mob of about a hundred other queasy and sweaty kids, thinking how uncomfortable it would be to view the Miracle of Life or maybe an awkward presentation about contraception that raised more questions than it answered.
Sitting on the short carpet, craning my neck to look over or between the kids in front of me, I was vaguely preoccupied with being in the way of the kids behind me. I spent a lot of time feeling awkward and unsure, as 6th graders do.
After a few minutes, one of the teachers bluntly told us that someone had shot then-President Ronald Reagan and then snapped on the TV.
I was only dimly aware of politics at the time, so I wasn’t panicked. How bad could the vice president be? Isn’t that what he’s there for? A spare?
Once the TV warmed up and one of the teachers figured out how to pry it off of the default PBS channel that was broadcasting something about the fascinating journey of bile from your liver to your small intestine, every news station was continuously replaying the same 20 seconds of video: The Prez waving and walking toward his car and then suddenly the camera jerks and then lots of Secret Service guys scuffling with someone against a wall.
Occasionally, news anchors would pop up to tell us the that they didn’t know much, but that the President of the United States had been shot and that they really didn’t know what else they could tell us. They spent a lot of time and used a lot of words to tell us they didn’t know anything. Made me wonder what was on PBS.
Alexander Haig came on briefly, to tell the nation “I’m in charge!” This prompted a quick civics discussion for about 20 minutes, until we were told he really wasn’t. Once George Bush (senior) got off of Air Force One, he was in charge.
Anyway, the air conditioning in the big room wasn’t adequate and I, like just about all of my little friends, was wearing some kind of tough, reinforced jeans and a shirt that didn’t quite fit anymore. We were all growing more woozy and damp and fidgety.
One of the teachers noticed this and she told us about how this was just like the untimely ends of JFK and Dr. King. She turned down the TV and began to tell us that we would remember where we were when we heard that Ronald Reagan was shot. Obviously, I do!
As inevitably happens when you get that many kids in one room, someone began to whisper. The teacher lost it and yelled about how significant this event was and how we all needed to be quiet and still and respectful …and clean and thrifty and… The entire class had tensed up. Everyone had their eyes forward, mouths shut. This teacher clearly had the floor, for once. She was winding up to really tell us something.
You could hear a No. 2 pencil drop.
Or you could hear a squeaky fart escape me.
Due to the Salisbury steak, noodles and a splash of oily green beans I’d eaten about an hour before, my colon chose that moment to scream in distress. It was one of those farts that jumps out of you with half a second of warning. My attempt to prevent the escape only raised the pitch.
You see, my colon couldn’t see the TV, nor did it care who had shot the president or even what a president was. Not even the president could help with the excess gas that had built up as a result of not quite adequate ability to digest something in the lunch I’d put in me, so my digestive tract took care of the problem in the only way it knew. Loudly.
Like a squad of synchronized swimmers, a sea of heads turned toward me. I tried to turn my head, to look at the girl behind me, but I was a little late. I was out of sync. No one bought it.
The teacher whose thunder I had just stolen, just closed her eyes in a tired sort of way for a moment and then re-launched her assault on the whisperers in the back, but it just didn’t have the same impact. I had ripped the stage out from under her.
Yeah, I remember where I was and what I did that day. And I will never forget it.
