\nIn grade 5, Greg sat in the column next to mine. We called the columns rows, but they weren’t: the desks were lined up, facing forward, with the front of this desk touching the back of the one before it. Therefore, we sat in columns facing the front of the room. However, actual rows naturally evolved from having adjacent columns. Hence, mathematically, Greg sat to my left in our “row”, though no-one thought such.<\/p>\n
Greg didn’t like me, but I probably had the best relationship with him of any with a non-friend. Frankly, he and might have been, functionally, each other’s best friend that year at school. The central reason was that we weren’t supposed to like each other, so there was no expectation. Treating each other politely, but at arm’s length, worked very well for us.<\/p>\n
The teacher(s) were afraid of Greg, I think, because he trusted his own ideas which had little to do with school. He was a farm kid, after all, so basically an anarchist. Yet, Greg was fair-minded and he had a good sense of humour which no-one, including a teacher, was safe from.<\/p>\n
Greg had a permanent smile and his eyes always shone brightly. I was sure that, in his mind, he was forever laughing at someone. He seldom shared his thoughts, but wasn’t the silent type, either.<\/p>\n
Typically, the farm girls did better in school than the farm boys. (Such an observation mayn’t be politically correct nowadays, but of course political correctness didn’t exist, to my knowledge, in the Annapolis Valley in 1981.) Greg was a farm boy through and through, but he actually did pretty well at school – with “skeletal” effort. The teacher never came after him for overdue work, which definitely happened, very publicly, with other kids. I’d say Greg typically got a B.<\/p>\n
Greg got in trouble less than numerous other farm boys, but it did happen. There were chairs in the hall you’d sit in, waiting to be seen by the principal or VP when you were sent to the office. A few times I walked by and saw Greg sitting in one of them – his smile was never brighter. Greg was likely afraid of God, but no-one else.<\/p>\n
“My uncle shot a bear last week,” Greg shared one time. “I saw it afterwards. Five shots went in – two right in the head.” Life and death, to those farmers, were everyday eventualities. I think Greg saw school as a trivial duty, like washing the dishes. I’ve no doubt he did his fair share of those, and many other chores, when he got home from school.<\/p>\n
Greg’s tireless sense of humour is probably why I talked to him as much as I did. We didn’t talk much any given time, but I always said “Hi” to him in the morning and asked how yesterday had been. In that class, I think he talked as much to me as to anyone.<\/p>\n
Because I wasn’t from a farm, Greg saw me as a step below compost, I could easily tell. Yet, I never took that personally; he was programmed to think that way. Moreover, even if you were a farmer, you weren’t exactly safe from Greg’s silent judgement.<\/p>\n
There were some interesting events that happened around Greg, which I hope to share in future posts.<\/p>\nJack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane,<\/a> Campbell River, BC.\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Self-tutoring about people and events from the past: the tutor reflects. In grade 5, Greg sat in the column next to mine. We called the columns rows, but they weren’t: the desks were lined up, facing forward, with the front …<\/p>\n