Shorty Helms taught me Algebra

The janitor at Woodsdale always sat on a wooden bench on one side of the hall. Half asleep he rang the bell that reinstated hell. As a young scholar I always struggled with math. A common punishment at Woodsdale in my day was to be sent to sit with Shorty in the boiler room. For some reason the time of day I usually got in trouble was about the time I was supposed to be learning Algebra. The boiler room was warm, and Shorty never even showed me the formula for when the coal would run out, so my math has haunted my whole life. My first experience with Shorty was in the sixth grade. Unfortunately in those days a lot of kids with serious learning disabilities were sent to school with everyone else and no special help. A poor girl from the Woodsdale Home sat behind me in the sixth grade. All day she picked her nose and blew her nose with most of the production going into the pages of her history book. The history of our country was a lot worse at the end of my sixth grade year. I cannot remember the teachers name, but I do remember on the last day of class she took the history book from this poor girl with brown paper towels and gave it to me with the instructions I was to take it to Shorty Helms and have him burn it.

One day bored and full of mischief I had a brilliant idea. Like most of my ideas it involved putting someone else up to the dirty work. The plan was fairly straight forward. Charlie Jones the mother of all ornery kids would go up on the second floor with a helper. I would station myself on the first floor and observe Shorty Helms. When Shorty went over to ring the bell at noon, I would whistle. This would let Charlie and his conspirator on the second floor know to pull the bell rope. Shorty awoke from his half sleep and looked at the clock. Still half asleep he staggered over to the bell rope and stuck his hand through the loop, then grabbed the loop. After a pull or two I gave the signal and the guys on the second floor where the rope came through started hoisting. It never occurred to me that Shorty would rise off the ground, but he went up in the air about four or five feet before he could let loose. When he did let go he fell to the floor wide awake and madder than hell. Shorty rushed up the big stair case, and much to the bad luck of George Amos, who happened to be coming down, Shorty grabbed George, thinking he was the culprit. George was so scared and about to cry, that I felt sorry for him and told Shorty he was not guilty. Shorty went to Mr. Hile and insisted the real culprits be beaten with a board. The outcome was not that bad, and I was never implicated. These kind of things were the reason I never missed school, sick or not. You just did not want to miss a great event.